by Tom Lowe
I looked at the envelope. Letter-perfect penmanship. It was addressed to Mr. Sean O’Brien, care of Ponce Marina. On the top, left side of the envelope was the return address. Just an address. No name of the sender. The return address was in Jacksonville. I didn’t know anyone there. If it was something ominous, and if the sender licked the envelope before sealing it, he or she might have sealed DNA with the glue and paper.
I needed a knife. “Come on, Max. I bet Nick has a fillet knife on his boat. If Nick’s not out fishing, we’ll pay him a visit.” Max walked faster, almost prancing, head held high, parading down the dock. She knew Nick’s boat, St. Michael, but more importantly, she knew Nick was an excellent and generous cook.
A trail of white smoke puffed from under the hood on a small barbecue grill near the center of St. Michaels’ cockpit. The double doors to the salon were wide open, Greek music coming from inside the fishing trawler, a boat with the lines and lineage from those that sailed the Mediterranean for centuries.
“Hot dog!” bellowed Nick Cronus, stepping from the salon to the cockpit, a Corona in one hand, a spatula in the other. Max sprinted across the auxiliary dock that ran parallel to St. Michael, bounding down the three wooden steps leading to the transom. Nick set his beer on a small table and picked up Max. “Where you been, hot dog? Sean kept you away from your marina family for too long.” Max licked Nick’s chin. He held her to his wide chest, picked up his bottle of Corona and danced in a circle to the music, Max almost smiling.
“Nick, do you have a fillet knife?”
“Do the fishes swim in the deep blue sea? Of course I have a fillet knife, I have three of ‘em. I used one a half hour ago to fillet some grouper and reds I caught. I put some on the coals for you and hot dog.” Nick set Max down, sipped from the bottle and opened the grill to turn over a large piece of fish. He sang something in Greek, closing one eye to avoid the smoke. Years of working as a fisherman gave him a body thick with muscle. His bushy dark hair was a mop of wavy locks, skin the shade of light tea. A full moustache covered his upper lip. His eyes were bright, playful, matching his steady grin. He was loyal, fearless, and after I pulled two bikers off him a few years ago, he said we were brothers for life.
I stepped down onto the cockpit, Nick reaching under the grill for a fillet knife. He handed it to me and I sliced the bottom portion of the envelope. He said, “I just rip open my mail. You do it the fancy way.”
I handed the knife back to Nick, unfolded the letter inside and read. It was written in hand. Probably from an expensive fountain pen.
Dear Mr. O’Brien,
By the time you get this letter I will be dead. I’m told the cancer will take me in six months, but I refuse to burden my family with that.
One of the true highlights of my life was the day I chartered your boat for a fishing trip. It had been a very long time since I felt that good about life and my place in this life. I remembered you telling me that you had been a Miami homicide detective. Something in my gut tells me you were good at it, too. I can understand how the death of your wife could make you seek a career change.
I was forever changed many years ago by the horrible abuse inflicted upon me and other children at the Florida School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. Grown men beat us so brutally our underwear was imbedded in our buttocks. In 1965, a boy named Andy Cope was murdered. He tried to run away one rainy night and they just shot him in the back. The men threatened me, men who were evil and filled with hate. And I kept silent. I now know that, for years, I suffered from post-traumatic-stress-disorder. I’m not making excuses. I’ve lived with that guilt all my life.
The local police say it’s a cold case with no evidence or a body. And now, on the eve of my death, I want to try to right a horrible wrong. I believe at least one of the men who did this is still alive. In this envelope, you’ll find the key to a post office box. On a separate paper, I’ve included the location and box number.
I’m hoping you might take a look at this case because Andy wasn’t the only one to die. It was like a death camp for boys. They buried Andy one rainy night down there. I sent a photocopy of this letter to Andy’s only sister. There may be a statute of limitations for rape and abuse – but not for murder. Should you decide to take this case, I’ve enclosed compensation in the package at the postal box as well as something tied to the murder, only if the right investigator could find the other parts. You can simply tear this letter up and walk away, but in my heart, I don’t think you will.
- Curtis Garwood.
I reached in the envelope and lifted out a single brass key and a note: P.O. Box 129, Daytona Beach. I held the key in the palm of my hand for a few seconds, thinking about what I’d just read. Nick sipped his beer and asked, “Sean, what the hell’s in that letter. Looks like you saw a ghost.”
“Do you remember a charter customer we had a few months ago—his name was Curtis Garwood?”
“Since you, or we, only had a few, I remember them all. Wasn’t Curtis Garwood the tall guy who wore the Florida Seminoles cap?”
“Yes.”
“Nice fella. What about him?”
“He’s apparently dead.”
“Dead? Damn, man. I’m sorry to hear that.” Nick made the sign of the cross. “How’d it happen?”
“I’ve read a few suicide notes…but I’ve never read one addressed to me.”
“Oh shit.”
“And this key is to a post office box that might have something in it that will shed some light on a murder of a child.”
“Murder…a kid?”
“And it may have happened more than fifty years ago.”
TWO
Jesse Taylor sipped his morning coffee at his kitchen table, checking to see who’d died. Since turning sixty-five, he read the obituary listings in the Jacksonville Times Union before he read the sports section. At least once a month, he’d found an obit—a death notice—about someone he’d known. Mostly it’d been men. Fellas who had shared the same hardscrabble lifestyle Jesse lived all his life—lived still. Paycheck-to-paycheck. Hand-to-mouth too often. Hard to hold a steady job when you held steady anger. Cheap wine and weed would take the edge off, but Jesse hated the hangovers, hated himself for relapsing.
His thick, white hair was thinning, a pink scar now visible an inch above his left temple. He shook open the newspaper, his sea-blue eyes narrowing through weak glasses, drugstore readers he’d bought almost two years ago. He glanced out of the kitchen window and watched a twenty-year-old pickup truck rattling through the trailer park, which was dotted with sagging and faded mobile homes. The sun was clearing the top of a cottonwood tree. A skinny, mixed-breed dog sniffed through garbage that lay spilled from a trashcan tipped on its side.
Three wives had left him through the years. The longest marriage lasted than a decade. He tried counseling. Tried religion. Nothing worked for long. The demons circled in the shadows just beyond the edge of his peripheral vision, the frail spokes on a rickety wagon pulled by a stubborn mule hitched to his subconscious. He hated the failures, but more importantly he hated how he’d failed as a father. He’d sworn never to beat his sons like he’d been beaten. But maybe back then, when he was locked away for truancy from school, the men had left more than scars across his butt and legs.
Maybe fifty-two years ago they’d beaten his soul out of his body.
They’d wielded a wide leather strap, similar to the straps barbers used to keep an edge on their razors. The boys were told to lie face down on a cot, grip the crossbar at the head of the cot, bite into a soiled pillow that reeked of dried vomit, blood and salty tears. And then the first crack of leather across buttocks. Ka-pow. It was the first lash that hurt the worst, Jesse remembered. It usually drew blood. After the twentieth stroke, you were almost numb to the pain, pieces of underwear embedded in the bloody wounds. By the fortieth lash, your soul had crawled away to hide. Your spirit, broken and severely wounded, seemed to leave your body behind in a hot, smelly room with dried blood splatter on
the walls and ceiling in an isolated building the men called the White House.
“You scream, boy, and we start over again,” Jesse remembered the man in the black fedora say the first time. “Bite into that pillow. It’s for your own good. You hear me, boy?”
Jesse blinked hard, glancing down at the newspaper, his wide hands smoothing out the fold, his eyes moist. He studied the obituary. Lots of deaths this week. Mostly older folks. People in their eighties. A combat World War II veteran. A former Detroit Tigers pitcher who retired to Florida twenty-five years ago. A seventeen-year-old girl who died when her car was struck by a drunk driver.
And then there was a name he knew.
It was the last name on the list. Curtis Garwood, originally from Tallahassee, a resident of Jacksonville since 1999. Graduated from Florida State University. The survivors include his wife, two grown children, and one grandchild. The cause of death wasn’t listed. Curtis Garwood dead at age sixty-four. The obit described him as a loving husband and devoted father. Then God bless you, thought Jesse. You managed to somehow bury it when so many of us who were held there never did. Never could. He exhaled deeply, the sound of an acorn popping off the aluminum roof, the last drip of coffee falling into the carafe, the coffee maker exhaling a whoosh sound. The obit read that in lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to be made to St. Michael’s Hospital. Jesse glanced up from the paper for a moment. He recognized the name of the hospital. It was for psychiatric patients.
He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, reading the name of the funeral home. He reached behind, removing a stack of newspapers, picking up a phone book and rifling through the pages. He found the number and punched the keys on his phone.
“Anderson Brothers Memorial Services, this is Shelly. May I help you?”
Jesse cleared his throat. “Yes…a friend of mine passed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. How may I help you?”
“His name is Curtis Garwood. It looks like your funeral home is doing the arrangements. When’s the viewing?”
“I’m sorry, the family requested a closed casket service. It’s tomorrow between one and five.”
“I’m coming from out of town. Did Curtis pass away in a car accident?”
“Not that I’m aware of. It appears the cause of death was suicide. I’m sorry. I understand that Mr. Garwood was about to enter hospice care for a terminal condition.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Jesse disconnected. He flipped through a small Rolodex, finding a card under index marker G. He lifted out the card, stained and worn thin over time. He studied the name for a moment, then dialed the number. “Hank, it’s Jesse. Did you hear that Curtis Garwood died?”
“No. How’d it happen?”
“Suicide.”
After a few seconds of silence, the man said, “Damn, Jesse…I’m sure as hell sorry to hear that. I haven’t seen Curtis in years. Like all of us, though, I know his burden was heavy.”
“Yep. Maybe some of ‘em are still alive. They need to pay for what they did to so many boys. You want to go with me…back to Jackson County?”
“You fall off the wagon again? Jesse, you been drinkin’?”
“No. I haven’t touched whisky in sixteen months. Curtis might have had cancer in his body, but his soul was eaten up way before his body took sick. I’m goin’ back there. I think Harold Reeves still lives in Marianna. ”
“What could you and Harold do? Don’t be dumb. We’ve talked about this before. It’s been too long. Too damn many years. That storm is way behind us. The statute of limitations has long passed. Nobody gave a damn then. Nothin’s changed. Give it up, Jesse. It’s not worth it. Not now. Not anymore.”
“If anything happens to me. I want you to know that Winchester 71 you always liked is yours. Gotta go, Hank.” Jesse disconnected, stood from the table and walked to a locked gun case in the corner of a small living room. He unlocked the case, removing a pump 12-gauge shotgun and a Colt .45 pistol. He set the firearms on the kitchen table, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. He picked up the newspaper, staring at the obituary notice and said, “Maybe after I’m finished you can rest in peace, brother.”
Jesse stared out the kitchen window, the skinny dog leaving the spilled garbage and loping through the trailer park, ground muddy from last night’s hard rain, the call of a large crow coming from the top of the cottonwood tree.
THREE
I saw Max’s radar go off. She stood on her hind legs in St. Michaels’ cockpit, front paws bracing against a deck chair, her ears raised as high as dachshund ears can be lifted. She growled, the fur down her long spine bristling. I looked in the direction she stared, her posture like an African meerkat watching a lion approach.
Ol’ Joe, a hefty tawny cat with more orange than black fur, strolled down the middle of L dock as if he owned the marina. He’d been here as long as most of the boat owners could remember. He was a cat that belonged to no one in particular, but most everyone in the live-aboard community would leave food for Ol’ Joe. Nick was his favorite host.
Nick held a bottle of beer in one hand, using a spatula in the other hand to turn the fish on the hot grill. Popeye like, he closed one eye, the smoke from the coals swirling around him. He glanced over to Max. “I see what’s got your panties in a wad, hot dog. Don’t mess with Ol’ Joe. That cat’s got scars older than you.” Nick reached in the cooler and lifted a grouper from the chipped ice. In a blur, he filleted the fish, tossing the fillets on the grill and throwing the fish head up to the dock where the cat approached.
A large brown pelican swooped down, landing on the dock less than six feet from the fish head. And now Ol’ Joe was on one side, the pelican on the other, the fish head in the middle. It was more than Max could handle. She paced and barked. The pelican charged for the food, the cat leaping in and sinking its teeth into the fish, old scars across the cat’s face resembling seared battle wounds. The pelican backed away, wings half extended. Ol’ Joe casually picked up his prize, lifted his head, turned around, and sauntered back down the dock.
He swaggered right by Dave Collins, who was heading our way with a Styrofoam coffee cup, newspaper and a tablet. Dave, mid-sixties, broad-shoulders, neatly trimmed gray beard, white hair, wore a tropical print shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Coming closer to St. Michaels he said, “Foul verses fur and fang. No contest. My money’s on Joe every time. But I’m not sure he has much fang left, but he’s never lost his chutzpa.” Dave grinned and sipped his coffee.
Nick wiped his hands on a paper towel. “Ever notice how the gulls go away when Ol’ Joe’s on deck? When Joe was younger, I’d give him a fish. Next mornin’ he’d bring me a rat. Tit for tat or rat, I figured. I’m making super grouper subs. Come aboard.”
“Twist my arm.” Dave walked down the short secondary dock next to St. Michael and stepped over and onto the cockpit, taking a seat in a canvas deck chair. Max followed him, wagging her tail. “How’s my favorite doxie?” Dave lifted her to his lap.
After retiring from a life-long career as an intelligence officer, and a twenty-five year marriage that crumbled, Dave spent most of his time living aboard Gibraltar, a 42-foot trawler moored across the dock from Nick’s boat. Dave’s analytical mind was always churning through the domino effect of current political events and their human and economic consequences. He was a fierce chess player, blogger, and he averaged reading three books a week, mostly nonfiction. I never knew him to forego a cocktail when the sun began to set in the harbor and Halifax River west of Ponce Marina.
Nick opened a Heineken and set it on a small metal table in front of Dave. “Ah, such service, Nicky. And I didn’t even have to ask.”
“Thought I’d give you somethin’ to sip on ‘cause I know my man, Sean, is gonna tell you about the letter he got in the mail from a dead man.”
Dave inhaled deeply, sipped his beer and said, “You know, I was just assuming Sean was here because it’s the first of the month. He’s p
robably paying his slip rent, and just maybe he and little Maxine would spend some time aboard Jupiter. Sean, you’ve become Thoreau, and that cabin on the river is your Walden Pond.”
I smiled and took a seat across the table from Dave, setting the letter on the tabletop. “I just rescreened the back porch. And now that I’m here at the marina, I was going to replace some of the isinglass on Jupiter.”
“Was? What’s preventing it?”
“Nothing, at least not yet.” I motioned toward the letter on the table. “A few months ago, a guy by the name of Curtis Garwood chartered my boat. Nick and I took him out in the reefs for a day. He caught fish. But he did something at the time that none of my other customers ever did?”
“What’s that?”
“Catch and release. Didn’t matter what he caught, we’d get the fish to the boat, and he asked Nick to release them.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, that about drove me nuts. Snapper, wahoo, trout…he’d send ‘em all back to Poseidon. For me, a Greek fisherman, it was almost sacrilegious.” Nick touched the small gold cross hanging from his neck.
Dave watched the condensation sweat from his bottle and asked, “So, I gather the letter on the table is from this guy who paid big bucks to catch fish, but not boat them. And, based on Nick’s introduction, I deduce this guy’s dead. Now, I’m damn curious. What’s in the letter?”
“A job offer.”
“A dead man offered you employment?”
“Not on-going work. If I take it, this would be for one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“To solve a cold case—a murder.”
“How cold?”
“More than fifty years.”
Dave glanced over to a 40-foot Sea Ray moving slowly across the marina waters. “Why’d he pick you?”
“He gives his reasons in the letter.”
Nick fixed three po-boy sandwiches filled with hot grouper, feta cheese, red onion, olive oil and peppers—all served on paper plates. He joined us at the table, a fresh beer in his hand. “Let’s eat.”