A FALSE DAWN Page 17

  “How do you mean all three?” I drained my beer and waited for his response.

  “Slater could be working for organized crime or the Miami connection in some capacity. Maybe he’s the front man for the Brennens. Sean, why would the Miami murderer, the perspn you called Bagman, leave his sphere in Miami to travel the inner circles of the farm camps?”

  “Serial killers follow ties, patterns. They need easy prey. The sociopath blames the present on the past and tries to destroy the future for those he holds responsible.”

  Dave nodded. “It could be a deep-seated, vengeful motivation. Could go back to his childhood. This discussion warrants two more beers from the land of Montezuma. Where the hell does Corona find the good water? Ever wonder that?”

  I started to answer when my cell rang. I fished for it deep in the pocket of my khaki shorts as Dave went below for the beers. Ron Hamilton was calling. “Sean, you nailed it! The stored DNA from the Bagman case involving the asphyxiation four years ago matches your killer. It’s the same perp. Nice work, partner.”

  I felt my pulse rise. I was beginning to understand the complexity and depth of the spider’s web.

  “Thanks, Ron. I’ll get back with you.”

  Dave returned with two fresh Coronas. He set one down in front of me. “You all right? You look like someone just told you the Mexicans made this beer from recycled donkey piss. Sounds like that call wasn’t good news.”

  “Bagman is the perp killing the women. We just matched his DNA.”

  Dave let out a low whistle and sat down. “Sounds like this guy never stopped killing. Just extended it into rural Florida. Perhaps he was driven to come here or to come back here. Sean, you’re tracking someone you hunted before…in the shadows. A killer with an enormous capacity for evil is lurking out there. Whoever is ultimately calling the shots fears nothing. He kills when he wants to. I bet he thinks he’s smarter than anyone who would attempt to catch him. What if he knows you’re tracking him? What if you chasing him again is part of his insane rush? Something that amplifies his kills even more.”

  FIFTY

  Somewhere on the fringe of midnight, I felt Jupiter move. Slightly, but it was enough to pull me from the edge of sleep. I listened for the sound of a boat that may have passed by in the night. Nothing. I was lying on the bed in the foreword cabin, a little groggy but aware that something didn’t feel right.

  I heard the distinct sound of metal on metal. Someone was trying to turn the locked handle on the salon door. I reached under the pillow for my Glock and quietly stood. Pools of soft light poured in Jupiter’s portholes. I had to walk through the light, past the galley, to get to the steps leading to the salon.

  The noise stopped. The intruder wasn’t gone. Jupiter didn’t move. I ran beyond the light and stood on the first step. I leveled the Glock toward the salon doors. A silhouetted figure was on the other side standing in the cockpit. Then hands came up to the glass on the doors and a face leaned forward to peer into the salon.

  It was Leslie.

  I put the pistol on the galley counter and opened the doors. I said, “I’d called you. Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay.” She stepped into the salon. The light from a three-quarter moon seemed to follow her inside, settling on her face, revealing tired and reddened eyes. The usual glow now drained from them. We stood in silence. I heard the subtle groan of the stern lines against the tide and the drone of a small boat entering the pass.

  “Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

  “It was so horrific,” she said softly. “She was so young. Maybe eighteen or nineteen.”

  “Let’s sit down. Want a drink?”

  “Do you have vodka?”

  “Grey Goose.”

  “That’s fine. Over ice, please.”

  I fixed the drinks and sat at the small bar with Leslie as she began to tell the story. She sipped the vodka and said, “The M.E. says the person that did it wasn’t a hack. He or she knew what they were doing. Kidneys and heart removed with the skill of a surgeon. No sign of the organs with the body. We think that whoever dumped the body didn’t plan on dumping it in the wildlife refuge. FHP was doing a spot sobriety check less than a mile away from near the area where the body was found. The speculation is the perp or perps saw the checkpoint and then they cut off the road and drove right through a chained entrance into the refuge. They drove a couple hundred feet in and dumped the body.”

  “Any tire tracks or shoe prints?”

  “Too sandy. We saw a spot where they apparently got stuck. They used limbs and branches under the tires.”

  “Do you have an ID on the body?”

  “No. She looked like the other girls, young. Dan and I will be going back to the camp at SunState Farms. I’m showing the latest vic’s picture to every farm worker I can until somebody tells me who she was. If she wasn’t from there, we’ll keep going until we hit all the farm camps in Florida. Somebody knows these women.”

  Leslie released a pent-up sigh and swirled the vodka in her glass. “They traffic in human beings. They sell sex. Now they traffic in human organs.”

  “Was she raped?”

  “Looks like it. Neck broken. Which is information we withheld from the media.”

  “Maybe she’s the latest vic of the Miami perp.”

  “Maybe none were killed by somebody who vanished four years ago.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s the same perp, Sean.” She took a long swallow from her drink.

  “For the first two murders it’s the same killer. Ron’s sending everything to you. The DNA is a match, at least the sample from the victim I found. It matches with DNA from the Miami murderer, the one who mixed asphyxiation, rape, and death into each gruesome ten minutes.”

  Leslie finished the last of the vodka in her glass, closing her eyes as she swallowed. “Where does this take us?”

  “It takes me back four years to a nightmare I didn’t solve then. Now it’s a lot nastier. We’ll work with Ron and Miami PD. We’ll find him.”

  “You don’t sound like you even believe what you’re saying. What’s changed, Sean? The perp left a trail then. He went away, and now he’s leaving a trail today.”

  “He never went away.”

  “What?”

  “I think he simply changed playing fields.”

  “Why? He got away with it down there, why change?”

  “Less chance of detection. Lots of prey. Maybe the stakes have changed. He simply stalks and kills when he feels the urge. Now, though, he’s getting sloppy, reckless, or, as Dave said, bold. He’s leaving his vics wherever he drops them, like trash on the side of the road. Like he’s saying, ‘Come get me if you can.’ ”

  “Are you telling me the deaths we know about might be the tip of the iceberg?”

  “Beginning to look that way. If he’s responsible for the victim with her organs removed, we have a man who is playing the ultimate game of control.”

  “What do you mean?” Leslie looked at her empty glass.

  “He may have gone on to something more sinister, more powerful, than resuscitating his rape victims just to kill them. What if he’s deciding who he’ll take a heart from to keep someone else alive through black market organ sales? There is a lot of money helping him make the decisions, but it’s the ultimate deity complex. Who’ll live, and who’ll be sacrificed.”

  “That makes me shudder. I’m still convinced that Slater is somehow mixed up in some of this. I know he’s involved in the murder of the strip club owner. I couldn’t locate Robin Eastman, the dancer in Tampa. The Nigh Noon Club says she showed up for work one night and never came back.”

  “I caught the local news. Saw you and Slater for a few seconds in a wide shot at the crime scene. I could tell by the body language that you weren’t in agreement.”

  “I guess I kinda flipped. It was after the body was tagged and bagged. Slater said he hoped the organs didn’t go to waste’ as he put i
t. Said maybe the heart would be keeping a CEO alive somewhere. I turned on him. No one else was directly by us and I told him, ‘Then why stop with trafficked women, why not move on to strippers?’ At that point, he knew that I knew. He just grinned. Under his breath, he had the gall, the sanctimonious balls, to say that most strippers were so full of drugs their internal body parts weren’t worth anything. I came close to slapping him across his arrogant face.”

  “So now he knows you’ve made him.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Leslie, now’s the time to go to the sheriff with this.”

  “ I need definitive proof, not supposition. I found the Robin Eastman’s mother. Name’s Irena Cliff. She lives in a trailer park outside of Tampa in Ybor City. She didn’t want to say much on the phone. I’m driving over there. She did tell me her daughter had worked for a strip club in Miami and was scared to death of her former boss. She didn’t say why, only that this man is some kind of power freak and Robin thought he might try to kill her.”

  “Did she give you the name of the Miami club?”

  “Not yet.”

  Thunder rumbled out in the Atlantic. I stood and closed the salon door. Dark clouds tossed and turned in an acrobatic chase across the sky. The moonlight faded as if wet rag had been tossed over a candle.

  I turned back toward Leslie. “Rain’s coming.”

  “Can I stay here? I don’t want to go home right now. I know it sounds silly, but I don’t want to be alone. Not tonight.”

  She stepped toward me, touching my chest with her hands, her eyes seeking something I didn’t know if I could give. “Do you mind?” she whispered.

  “Not at all. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Okay, just hold me a second, Sean.”

  She felt small in my arms. Her head rested on my chest, and I held her for a long moment in silence. Jupiter swayed a little as the wind picked up and thunder rolled.

  Leslie looked out the salon window and watched the lightning in the distance. “I’d like a tiny bit more vodka. I usually don’t react this way to a crime scene. This one was different, and with the stuff I’m finding out about Mitchell Slater, I guess I’m pretty stressed. I just need something to help me sleep.”

  I made fresh drinks. There was a loud clap of thunder, then the tap of rain against Jupiter’s exterior. Leslie smiled. “I’ve never been on a boat in the rain. It’s kind of like a barn, the sound of the rain on the tin roof.”

  “Maybe it’ll help you sleep.”

  She was hesitant a few seconds. “Tonight, I need to sleep alone. Just knowing you’re here, on the boat, will help. I’ll sleep on the sofa?”

  “The bed in the main cabin is more comfortable. Please, take it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Good night, Sean.” She took her drink and disappeared into the main cabin.

  Through the starboard window, I watched the lights of a shrimp boat tied across the marina. I got a spare pillow and blanket and stretched out on the salon sofa. The rain started to beat down with the deafening roar of a waterfall. A burst of thunder and lightning shattered in the heavens somewhere above Jupiter.

  In my dreams I saw one of the young victims of Bagman. She had been a prostitute. Too young, nineteen. Auburn hair, soft features, and porcelain skin. Lying on her back with her head covered in a clear plastic bag, rain splattering against the plastic, her eyes open and locked on the dark sky. I wanted to close her eyes but the face floated away like a ghost ship on the horizon, a ship that carried the dead.

  #

  WHEN I AWOKE THE STORM was gone. I looked over to the glowing red numbers on the clock radio near the bar just as the time changed from 4:47 to 4:48. A cloud passed, and the moonlight spilled through the salon windows. It was a pale shade of white, a candle flame slow dancing in a room of dead calm.

  I got up and quietly went down the steps to check on Leslie. The cabin door was open, the room aglow with moonlight. The earlier stress in her face was gone, replaced by calm serenity. Her breathing soft and steady. A cloud enveloped the moon. The light in the cabin faded, and darkness pulled a blanket over Leslie.

  I stepped out on the cockpit and climbed the steps to the bridge. The hour before dawn was cool and clean after the rain. I could smell the scent of the ocean in the air and hear the soft cadence of the waves in the distance breaking on the shore at high tide. I thought about Sherri and Max and the goodness found in the world, in the simple things. Then I thought about the mask of hate hiding the faces of bad men, about the indifference in their dull eyes and the wickedness permeating their souls.

  I suddenly felt very alone, like my boat was floating in a vast sea without an anchor and a rudder to guide it, and I didn’t how to change the course.

  FIFTY-ONE

  I awoke on the bridge to the sound of laughing gulls flying by me and the noise of a charter boat leaving. The sun looked as if it had been up at least an hour. I stood from the captain’s chair on legs that felt like I’d gone twelve rounds in the ring. My left leg was numb and tingling, the blood beginning to circulate through a cramped muscle. My joints stiff as spring flowers caught in a late snow fall.

  I managed to climb down the steps to the cockpit without falling. Stepping inside the salon, I saw a note left on the couch next to my pillow. Sean, had to run. Needed to get in early before Slater arrives. Call you later! You looked so sweet sleeping up top, didn’t have the heart to wake you - Leslie.

  I made coffee, headed for the shower, and planned to spend part of the day where the last victim was found.

  #

  ON THE DRIVE to the wildlife refuge I called Ron Hamilton. “What’s the last known address of the Bagman survivor, the last attack before the perp went underground? Didn’t she move to Jacksonville?”

  “Give me ten minutes and I’ll see what I have.”

  “I’ll be on my cell. If you can’t reach me, leave a message.”

  “You gonna be unreachable by cell?”

  “I’ll be in a wildlife refuge.”

  “That where they found the last vic, the one was opened up?”

  “That’d be the place.”

  “Be careful, partner. The woods can be full of creeps.”

  #

  THE PRIMITIVE ROAD into the St. Johns Wildlife Refuge was narrow. Room for one vehicle to travel either way. As I entered the refuge, the sunlight was diminished by the tree line. I could smell blooming honeysuckles, pine straw, and thick grass still wet from last night’s rain.

  Within a ten-minute walk, I came to the crime scene tape that sectioned off the spot where the body was found. I began following the furrows, going deeper into the wildlife refuge. It was about eighty yards farther when I found the spot, I assumed, where the vehicle with the body had tried to turn around and got stuck in the mud. Even after the rain, ruts caused by the back tires spinning were deep. Rainwater had pooled in the bottom. I walked past the ruts, looking on both sides for broken limbs, bark, or logs.

  I turned to head back toward the Jeep, but as I started to step over one of the ruts, the reflection of the tree line on the water caught my eye. A large sycamore tree stood less than twenty feet away. I reached into the dark water, my fingers feeling and sifting through small rocks, twigs, and sand. I pulled up three leaves and looked at the sycamore tree near me. In the dappled sunlight, I examined the leaves and wondered if there might be others, perhaps miles away, that were exact DNA matches to the muddy sycamore leaves in my hand. Was it possible? If so, and if I found leaves with the same plant DNA, it meant they could have come from only one place. The same tree.

  FIFTY-TWO

  In the Jeep I listened to the voice-message Ron Hamilton had left on my cell.

  “Hey, ol’ buddy, as you’re running around doing the fun stuff, I’m back here in database central. Got a last known address for Sandra Dupree. You might get lucky and find her in Jacksonville at 17352 Old Middleburg Road. Phone company has no records in her name. I fi
gured that. Happy hunting.”

  Driving to connect with I-95 north to Jacksonville, I tried Leslie’s cell. No answer. Then I called her office. A male voice answered. “Homicide, Grant speaking.”

  “Detective Grant, this is Sean O’Brien. Is Leslie around?”

  “No, she came in and made a few calls and went right back out.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Tampa. Says she has an interview with an older woman who’ll only open up woman-to-woman. Sort of a Barbara Walters interview. I’m getting used to it.”

  “Sometimes, when it comes to gender, especially if the interviewee is older, a one-on-one with the same sex causes a better dialogue flow.”

  “Yeah, I know. It just seems that Leslie’s moving at such a fast pace that we’re sharing more notes passing in the hall than we do in the field. She’s been keen on your helping us in the Jane Doe cases.”

  “And now I could use some help.”

  “Does this mean I have a partner again?” He laughed. “Leslie has a lot of respect for you, but since she’s my ‘part-time’ partner…whatcha need?”

  “Can we meet?”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Give me ten minutes. Where?”

  “Parking lot of the Waffle House on Dominion.”

  #

  IT TOOK DAN ALMOST a half hour to get there. He pulled up next to my Jeep, got out, and walked over to me. “Sorry about running late. Slater wanted to chat.”

  “And he’s such a compelling conversationalist.”

  “In a monosyllabic four-letter-word kind of way. He wanted to know why I wasn’t with Leslie.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “Truth. Told him she had an interview and I was meeting with a source. The schedules conflicted, so she went to cover one and I did the other. I just didn’t say she went to Tampa and I was meeting with you.”