SEVEN
Death has an odor unlike any other. The smell is often the first thing that greets you at a murder crime scene. In Miami, the heat and humidity would accelerate the decay process. Some cops seemed to get used to it. I never did. It was resurrected the moment I walked into the hospital emergency room.
The intensive care unit of Halifax Hospital is a sanitized place where the whiff of death isn’t permitted. But there was the smell of misery. I could detect it between the layers of disinfectant. It was the scrubbed hint of diarrhea, bleach, vomit, adhesive bandages, medicines and human stress.
Nine adults and three children sat in the ER waiting room. I looked at each face, trying to determine a connection between the victim I’d found and anyone in the waiting room. Three of the people were black; half dozen others were white.
A nurse seated behind the desk ignored me as she keyed information into a computer. “Excuse me,” I said waiting for her to pause and look up. “A young woman was airlifted in here this morning. Can you tell me how she’s doing?” I noticed that a doctor stopped writing for a moment and looked over at me.
“What’s the patient’s name?” the nurse asked.
“I don’t know. She was young. Face injuries. Probably a rape victim.”
“I need a name.”
“How many severely beaten young women do you have airlifted in here during the last twenty-four hours? Is she going to be okay?”
“Are you a family member?”
“No.”
“I can’t release that information unless you’re a member of the family or a police officer. Sorry.” She dropped her eyes from me and began typing on her keyboard.
I almost instinctively reached for a badge that I hadn’t carried in a year. “My name is Sean O’Brien. I found the victim. I was a homicide detective with Miami PD. Here’s my driver’s license. All I’m asking you is to let me know her condition.”
“That information is private. Hospital rules.”
I started to tell her that I couldn’t care less about hospital rules when the doctor nearby stopped writing and approached me. He motioned to follow him from the reception desk into an alcove. He studied me a second or two through dark eyes that looked tired yet compassionate.
“I’m Doctor Saunders. Did I hear you say that you found the girl brought in by air-ambulance today?”
“Yes. How is she?”
“No one has been here except the police. We don’t even have an ID for the deceased—”
“Deceased?”
“We did everything we could to save her. She was brutalized.”
I said nothing. Acid burned in my stomach.
“She’d lost a lot of blood. We had to remove her womb to try and save her.”
“What?”
“She’d been so abused there was no option. It’s tragic. I hope her killer is found.” He paused and started to leave, then hesitated. “I heard you say you were a homicide detective. Are you going to search for whoever did this to that poor girl?”
As I started to answer, his name was paged.
Dr. Saunders swiped an ID card through a slot and a set of double doors opened to a labyrinth of treatment rooms. I stood there a moment and watched him walk down a long corridor of hope and despair.
The sounds of my surroundings seemed more acute. The pulse of digital monitors connected to misfiring hearts. Soft sobs came from behind a curtain. A baby cried.
Outside, I inhaled the night air, filling my lungs to capacity. I wanted to purge the medicinal smells of human pain from the back of my throat. There was the scent of blooming roses, fresh-cut grass and pine. Lightning illuminated clouds over the ocean.
Exhaustion was sinking into my chest and the back of my neck. I looked forward to seeing Max. She was such a damn good listener. Never talked back, always seemed to care about what I was saying. I’d hoped she could hold her little bladder a while longer. Half an hour and I’d be home to let her out, feed her, fix myself some leftover chili and end the evening on the porch with Max on my lap and a scotch in my hand.
I was almost to my Jeep when two people stepped from a row of cars.
“That’s far enough O’Brien,” one of them said. “Put your hands where we can see them.”
EIGHT
Detectives Slater and Moore cautiously approached me the way officers do when they think a gun is present or an arrest is imminent. Detective Moore carried something in one hand. She looked nervous, her lips tight, eyes wide, ready for confrontation.
Under the parking lot streetlights, I could see a pulse beat in one side of her neck. She said nothing, allowing Slater to throw out the first pitch.
“Mr. O’Brien, we meet again. How’s the vic?”
“She’s dead, but you knew that.”
He was silent, searching my face. “Where have you been since I last saw you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I do mind. I’m not a convicted felon. You’re not a parole officer. So why don’t you two tell me what you want and we can enjoy the rest of the night in separate places.”
“I’ll tell you what we want. We want your DNA. Detective Moore is prepared to take it. Don’t suppose you’re wearing your gun.”
“Not tonight. I usually do wear a gun in a hospital to see how fast security can respond. Part of my consultant business.”
Detective Moore almost smiled. She said, “We appreciate your cooperation.”
Slater said, “Then you don’t mind turning around and placing your hands on top of the hood. Spread your legs.”
“Glad to oblige, Detective.” I placed my hands on top of someone’s BMW and spread my feet apart. I could hear the sirens of an approaching ambulance a few blocks away racing toward the hospital. Slater frisked me.
“All right,” he said with a sound of satisfaction. “Turn around. Why were you at the hospital?”
“If there isn’t a new law against hospital visitations, I’m leaving.”
“Not yet,” he said, holding his palm out like a crossing guard. “We’ll take that DNA sample. Leslie, why don’t you go on and secure a sample from Mr. O’Brien.”
“Why don’t you ask my permission before you start reaching in my mouth?”
Slater’s eyebrows rose like an animator drew them high on his forehead. “We can do this downtown or we can do it here, Mr. O’Brien.”
“I don’t have a problem with a DNA sample. I do have a problem with your method of getting one.”
“If you don’t like police protocol, take it up with the sheriff.” His jaws hardened.
“This’ll be fast,” said Detective Moore, taking a swab from a plastic kit she held. “This will just take a couple of seconds. Please, open your mouth.”
“Do I say ahhhhh?” I asked, opening my mouth, allowing her to take the saliva sample, which she did.
“Thank you.” This time she did smile.
Slater rocked on the balls of his feet. “When we did the search at the crime scene we found blood in the back of your Jeep. We tested it. Came from the victim.”
“And as I told you, I tried to stop the bleeding from her chest. I ran back to my Jeep to call for help and to get a towel. I must have touched something.”
“What did you think when you heard she’d died?”
“What did I
think
? I was saddened. She was someone’s daughter.”
“No one’s claimed the daughter—the body. Don’t have an ID. Makes it hard to alert next of kin. Right now she’s a Jane Doe, unless you know her name.”
I said nothing.
“I’m looking forward to the results from the DNA,” he said. “Why’d you really leave Miami PD in the prime of your career? I checked on you. Seems you took a medical leave after you shot and killed an innocent man at a crime scene. Was the line gettin’ a little blurry for you, O’Brien?”
“Why would I assault this girl and stay at the crime scene?”
He grinned. “We’re eliminating suspects. You haven’t been eliminated.”
“I’m not your perp, pal. He’s out there. And chances are he’ll do it again if he hasn’t already. Now either arrest me, or get the hell out of my way.”
“I’d watch that temper if I were you, O’Brien. Leads to stress.”
I walked between Slater and Moore. I hoped Slater would reach his sweaty hand out to try and stop me. He didn’t.
#
I DROVE WEST ON HIGHWAY
44 toward DeLand and the St. Johns River. I watched a quarter moon play hide-and-seek with me through the trees near the road. I hadn’t been home in almost fourteen hours and I felt bad for little Max. If she’d peed on the floor, I made a silent promise that I wouldn’t even raise my voice to her.
The day’s events played back in my mind. What had the girl whispered to me? Was the bruise on her cheek the letter U or something else? All I knew is that somewhere there was someone who loved her and was
never
going to see her again.
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.
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 leaves 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.