There was a third reason: I also believed that if Squires and the girl had managed to escape, they would have had to travel a similar path to safety. It was unlikely that they had survived, but it would satisfy my mania for thoroughness while also providing an ironic last hope that my obssessiveness hadn’t cost a young girl her life.
It happened.
Fifty yards into the woods, north of where the shack was still burning, I heard a mewing sound. It was soft, rhythmic, a noise so similar to the sound of wind in the pine canopy that I would have dismissed it as a feral cat had I not been wearing night vision.
After only a few more steps, I could discern the source of the noise. It was Tula Choimha. She was kneeling over a massive shape that I soon realized was the body of Harris Squires.
I had been moving so quietly, the girl hadn’t heard me. I didn’t want to frighten her, but I also realized that I couldn’t allow her to see my face. I lowered the ski mask, readjusted the monocular, then knelt before calling to her softly, “Tomlinson sent me. Don’t be afraid. Your friend Tomlinson wants me to help you.”
It was as if I had spoken a secret password. Instead of being startled, the girl jumped to her feet and ran to me, sobbing, then threw herself into my arms. Only when she noticed my strange headgear did she recoil, but I patted her between the shoulders as I held her and spoke into her ear, saying, “I’m taking you home. Please don’t ask me any questions. Okay? But it’s true, I’m taking you home.”
Through the lens, the girl’s face was as radiant as phosphorus, but I could also see that her nose was swollen, her face bruised. She stared at me for a moment, and I sensed she knew exactly who I was, although she had only seen me briefly after the alligator attack at Red Citrus.
“You’re Tomlinson’s friend?” she asked, but there was a complexity to her intonation that signaled she was asking far more than that simple question.
“I’m taking you home,” I repeated. “That’s all I can tell you. But first I need to know how badly you’re hurt. Someone hit you in the face, I can see that. But were you burned? It’s important that you tell me the truth.”
My mind was already scanning our options. If Tula needed emergency attention, the decision was easy. I would call 911 and risk the fallout—claim to have found her wandering in the woods, which was true. If she was okay, I would park in the shadows at Red Citrus and not let her out of my truck until Tomlinson had arrived and found her “officially.”
But the girl replied, “I have a headache, that’s all. Some of my hair got singed. The only reason I’m not hurt is because”—her head pivoted toward Squires—“because the giant saved me. I have never met a man so strong—stronger than Hercules, even. We were in a building, there was a fire, so he picked me up like a bear, then we both crashed through a wall.”
Carrying the girl in my arms, I walked toward Squires. What I saw was unexpected. The man appeared to be badly burned on his shoulders, yes, but he had also been peppered with a shotgun and castrated. It caused me to remember what Victorino had said about the woman I had seen running from the RV, batting at imaginary flames.
“That Frankie is crazy,” he had told me.
It was a rare nugget of truth from the gang leader.
“Please,” the girl told me after several seconds. “You shouldn’t look at Harris anymore. He’s not covered. God is with him now, but we still need to show respect. I’ll come back later. I’ll pray for Harris and then cover him with a shroud.”
I wasn’t surprised that Tula was in shock. But I also wondered if she was delusional—something I had suspected from the first—because she leaned her mouth close to my ear as if to whisper a secret, saying, “Jehanne already told me that you were coming. That you would be wearing a helmet like a knight. I expected it to be made of steel”—the girl touched her fingers to my ski mask—“but this is the armor that Jehanne spoke of. I understand now. You are the warrior knight God sent to save me. That’s why I understand I cannot ask you questions.”
“Jehanne,” I said gently even though I had never heard the name. “Yes . . . that was good of her. I’m glad she told you because I didn’t want you to be afraid.”
Cradling the girl in my arms, I turned and began walking in the direction of my truck. Tula laid her head against my shoulder and began to cry. After a few steps, though, she pulled away and plucked at an oversized polo shirt that covered her like a dress, saying, “Normally, I’m not so weak, but I can’t help myself. It’s hard for me to leave Harris all alone because he fought for me so hard. He even gave me his shirt to wear. And he found my amulets—my shields.”
The girl was cupping what looked like a necklace, as she continued, “Once I was wearing my amulet, I thought everything was going to be okay, that God would heal him. That we would live in the mountains together, where I could take care of him. But then . . . but then . . .”
I felt the girl’s body shudder, and I expected her to say that it was then that Squires had died.
Instead, Tula turned to look at something I hadn’t yet noticed. It was an elongated form lying in the distance, difficult to decipher details even with night vision. I began walking toward the shape as I listened to the girl explain, “But even God can’t control evil. The power it has over people—a giant like Harris, it makes no difference. I wonder sometimes if even Jehanne understands.”
The girl nodded toward the shape, her expression fierce, then turned away before telling me, “Evil. That’s what killed Harris—even though I fought to save him just like he fought for me. She came out of the darkness, screaming profanities, and running. It surprised us. Both of us. I fought back. But Harris lost his strength and died.”
Carefully, I placed the girl on the ground, her back turned, and I walked to the body of the woman I had seen fleeing the RV. It was Frankie, I realized
I knelt, then risked moving the woman’s arms to assess her injuries as best I could. To be certain, I even used a small LED light to check her legs, her face, a portion of her abdomen.
The flames might not have been imaginary, but Frankie’s body had only minor burns. Some blistering on her arms and a head of singed red hair. Maybe the explosion had blown the woman clear of the fire—possible, if she had been standing in an open doorway when a cigarette ignited the propane.
I knew from what I’d witnessed that the woman was already drunk. Alcohol could have contributed to her hysteria, so Frankie had assumed the worst, panicked and sprinted into the woods. Maybe the woman had tripped and fallen. Or collapsed from exhaustion—but only after surprising the Guatemalan girl and her injured bodybuilder protector.
What my careful scenario didn’t explain was the blood that soaked the woman’s tube top . . . and the paring knife protruding from Frankie’s throat.
“She was evil,” Tula said to me, her back still turned. “She wanted to kill Harris and she finally did. But not his goodness. That’s what I was trying to save.”
My mind was working fast, already anticipating the questioning the girl would have to endure. Tula Choimha needed an out. Something real. Something she had witnessed with her own eyes so she could speak honestly of it later.
I said to Tula, “I want you to watch something. It won’t be pleasant. Later, though—when people ask you about what happened—you’ll be able to tell them honestly what you saw. Other things . . . things that happened earlier tonight . . . you’ll probably want to forget.”
I waited until I was certain that the girl had turned to look. Then I used the paring knife on Frankie—several times—before leaving the knife just as I had found it, in her throat.
We walked in silence then, the girl in my arms. It wasn’t until we were almost back to my truck that Tula looked up into my masked face and said, “Do you remember the goodness that was in you as a child? God’s goodness, I’m talking about.”
I replied, “Sure. Everyone does,” because I thought it might make her feel better or reassure her at the very least.
I had u
nderestimated the Guatemalan girl’s strength, however, and her maturity. It was Tula who then provided me with a more tangible form of reassurance, saying, “That doesn’t mean warriors shouldn’t lie to protect other warriors. Joan of Arc did it many times to protect her knights. The Maiden has promised me it’s true—Dr. Ford.”
EPILOGUE
ON THE SECOND SUNDAY IN MARCH, WHICH IS WHEN DAYLIGHT savings adds an hour of light to winter’s darkness, I drove my truck to the West Wind Inn, a mile from Dinkin’s Bay, and was on the beach in time to watch the sunrise.
It was 6:43 a.m. The sun had not yet appeared above the Sanibel Lighthouse, but clouds to the west were fire laced, tinged with pink and edged with turquoise from a sky that melded blue with the green of an old morning sea.
I had just taken possession of a custom surfboard, designed by surf icon Steve Brom and shipped from the Florida Panhandle by YOLO Boards of Santa Rosa Beach.
It was Tomlinson who had discovered the fledgling company, perhaps charmed by the YOLO acronym: You Only Live Once.
As my friend pointed out, the name didn’t mesh with his convictions about reincarnation or life after death, but, as he explained, “You gotta love the kick-ass spirit it represents.”
I was unmoved until I had tried one. The next afternoon, I spoke to Brom and ordered a board specifically for my needs. After discussing what I wanted, I then provided the man with my height and weight.
Amused, the California surf guru had told me, “I don’t expect to see you on the pro circuit anytime soon. But this might be my chance to create a board that even a gorilla could use, maybe even learn to shred.”
Funny guy.
The board—a stand-up paddleboard, by definition—had arrived yesterday, a Saturday, just as I had finished separating a new batch of specimens, sea horses and filefish in one tank, two dozen anemones in another. After I had unboxed the board, I had leaned it against the outside wall of my lab, then trotted down the steps to get a better view from the deck.
There is something iconic about the shape of a surfboard. It gave me pleasure just looking at it. The body was laminated bamboo, rails classically arched, the bottom painted deuce-coupe yellow. The board was more than eleven feet long, the ends symmetrically rounded, and I amused myself by deciding it would have appeared equally at home on Easter Island, guarding a seaward bluff, or sliding down a North Shore wave.
Waves. That’s why I had come to the beach. It’s why I had done only an abbreviated morning workout, then headed straight to the West Wind after checking the weather report.
Sanibel Island isn’t known for its surf, but this morning was different. Wind was blowing low over the Gulf, rolling waves from the southwest, their crests finally peaking as they soldiered toward the beach after a five-hundred-mile journey from the Yucatán, Mexico.
Just beyond the second sandbar, fifty yards from shore, a translucent green beach break was curling with a symmetry so consistent that I realized my hands were shaking a little as I strapped the leash around my ankle, then carried the board to the water.
To my left, to my right, there were early-morning beach strollers and shellers and young honeymooners walking hand in hand. Decade after decade on the islands, the faces differ, but the beaches continue to provide a safe conduit to the infinite, narrow galleries of sand that illustrate relentless change.
The surf line, though, was as empty as the horizon.
Waves were waiting. And so was something else I needed: solitude. I craved it. Craved it so intensely that, since I had rescued the Guatemalan girl eleven days earlier, I had been avoiding people. It is the same when I return from an overseas assignment. I view it as decompression time, a period of slow reacclimatization after surfacing from the depths.
At the gate to my boardwalk, I had hung the NO VISITORS PLEASE sign. I retreated to my lab, ignoring e-mails, refusing phone calls, and I had even skipped Dinkin’s Bay Marina’s traditional Fridaynight party.
I worked out every morning and afternoon, then spent most of the day in my flats skiff or in my little trawler, dragging nets. My only companions were the sea creatures that inhabited my aquaria, my telescope and the marina’s self-important cat, Crunch & Des, who spent an unusual amount of time gifting me with an unusual amount of attention.
Two people I made a special effort to avoid were Tomlinson and Emily Marston.
The only person I spoke with daily—almost daily, anyway—and visited whenever I could, was Tula Choimha. I had wrestled with the possibility that interacting with the girl might cause police to be suspicious. As I got to know her better, however, and because I paid close attention to how law enforcement types reacted when I was around, I was soon convinced that the opposite was true.
More important, I was convinced of something more compelling: Tula could be trusted. We never discussed what had happened. The girl was savvy enough to understand that any mention of that night could mean years in jail for me.
Instead, we spoke of her brother and her aunts and how eager she was to return to Guatemala. Her mother, though, was never mentioned. I didn’t pry because of something Tula had shared with me that night during our long drive. “My mother is dead,” the girl told me. After several minutes of silence, she explained, “Harris confessed something to me that I can never speak of again. I love them both and I forgive them both. Because I love them, the truth of how my mother died will die with me.”
A safer topic for our daily talks included the hundreds of Central Americans who visited the girl’s hospital daily, waiting patiently and offering prayers, even though they knew they would not be allowed to see the patient they revered.
It required special patience for me to pretend to accept Tula’s explanation. “They’re aware that God has sent them a message through me. My people don’t belong here. No amount of money is worth the homes and families they abandoned. On their cell phones, I know they probably exaggerate what I suffered—some of the crazy stories the nurses have told me! But the fire was real, and so was the evil. God wants me to keep spreading His message. And I will.”
What transpired the night I rescued Tula was on my mind hour after hour, day after day. From it sprouted additional worries and realizations. I had saved the girl. It made me responsible for her in some ways. I also felt a growing affection for Tula that was beyond anything I had anticipated. It matched my admiration for Tula’s intellect, her maturity and her decency.
In the bag I had taken from Squires’s truck, I had counted out more than fifty-three thousand, mostly in hundreds, fifties and twenties. Cash of that amount would invite scrutiny, and I was still investigating the best way to create an account in Tula Choimha’s name.
Responsibility is a petri dish of worry.
But now as I waded into the Gulf, then paddled toward the surf line, my earth-linked worries faded, becoming incrementally smaller with every freeing stroke.
Nine days after the missing Guatemalan girl made headlines by suddenly reappearing at Red Citrus RV Park dazed and injured, she was released from the hospital with the blessings of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, but only after several interrogation sessions plus four days of medical tests and psychological evaluations.
“The child is suffering from shock and what may be posttraumatic amnesia,” a department spokesman was quoted as saying. “But she is a resilient child, very brave, and the information she has provided is so detailed that we believe we have a firm grasp on the facts regarding how she disappeared and the murders she may have witnessed.”
Because of the girl’s age, thankfully, the reports never revealed Tula’s name.
Unlike Tomlinson, who is a New York Times junkie, I avoid newspapers. Reading a litany of human outrages, I believe, is a damn dark way to start what in Florida is usually a consistently bright day. Because I had a personal stake in how the investigation unfolded, however, I spent those ten days paying close attention.
Especially nerve-racking were the afternoons that I knew Tula was being i
nterrogated.
At any moment, day or night, the police could come tapping at my door. Paranoia isn’t irrational when fears are well founded or when guilt is the burden of someone who is truly guilty. It was a new experience for me—while living within the normally safe borders of the United States, anyway—and not pleasant.
Not that I suffered from pangs of guilt. I didn’t. If a shrink somehow learned the truth about my life, if he was provided details of some of the things I have done, he might conclude that I am a sociopath, incapable of remorse or guilt.
The shrink would be wrong. I am sufficiently objective to acknowledge that I am less affected by emotion than most people, yet I suffer guilt and regret on a daily basis just like everyone else. I am aware that too many times I have behaved thoughtlessly, stupidly and childishly. I have hurt people I care about and I have said words that will forever make me wince.
The difference between myself and a sociopath is this: When I executed those five men, I did it while in full control of my emotional and intellectual facilities. I didn’t pull the trigger because I wanted to do it. I killed those men because it was necessary—required, in fact, by the circumstances and the exigencies of their own violent behaviors. Pyromania is to arson what murder is to assassination.
“Strictly business,” Victorino might have explained it, and the man would have been correct for once.
When I replayed the events of that night in my mind, I felt no guilt for the same reason I felt no perverse thrill or any emotional satisfaction. Even so, what had happened was on my mind constantly. So I followed the news reports.
The St. Pete Times referred to the incident as The Immokalee Slayings , which for that excellent newspaper was an understandable hedge because Immokalee was the nearest town and also because three of the seven victims resided within the city limits.
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