I headed for the truck. Drove across the scraggly lawn or pasture, kicking up dust in the orange sunlight, scattering cow shit and grass, going straight for the driver’s side door. I reached for my Glock stopping beside his door. The truck window was down. He turned his head toward me. Narrow face red from the sun. Thin lips. His nose had been broken and reset, leaving a white scar and slight hump on the bridge. No expression. No surprise. Nothing but a cold stare, smoky gray eyes, pupils like pewter dots. His dirty blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
I could smell burning weed. I held the Glock in my lap and said, “Good evening.”
No response.
“You must be the neighborhood watch. You watched me arrive at the house across the street, and you are watching me leave. Why the special interest?”
No response.
“I see. You’re a good listener. Not much of a talker. Well, listen to this, pal. That lady in the trailer is my mother.”
His eyes opened a notch, nostrils flaring. I had his attention. “Yes, my mother. Which means Dillon Flanagan is my brother.”
The carotid artery on the left side of his neck throbbed. He touched the tip of his nose with his index finger and said, “Take your game elsewhere. In one minute I can have a dozen men here.”
“Good. They can carry your body away, because in two seconds I can turn what’s left of your brain into applesauce.” I saw his right hand move. “Don’t be stupid. Right now we’re simply communicating. You pull a gun on me and it turns to war, turns to one body bag-yours.”
He stared at me, dry swallowed, his jawline like a rock. “Tell Dillon that his younger brother, Sean, sends his regards. I’m sending something else: a warning. Tell him Courtney Burke is off limits. She’s to be left alone, unharmed. If he does something to her, tell him there is nowhere on earth that he can hide. I will find him.”
The man in the truck half grinned. He propped his elbow on the inside of the door. “Mister, I don’t know who the fuck you are or who you think you are, but you ought to go back to fuckin’ Florida. Dillon Flanagan will tear you a new asshole. You got no idea who you’re messing with, okay? He’s a prophet. The man can only be found when he wants to be found. You being at his mother’s house won’t set well with him. You won’t have to find him, he’ll find you, and he knows how to do it through others. The man can walk through trees.”
“Give him my message.”
I put the Jeep in gear and drove back across the grass to the street, turned left, and headed toward the highway and a hotel. A shower, food, and some aspirin couldn’t happen fast enough. I dialed Detective Dan Grant’s mobile, wondering if he’d answer an incoming number he didn’t recognize. He did answer.
“Dan, it’s Sean. I found Courtney Burke’s grandmother. I know Courtney’s story, and it’s a horrific one. I know who she’s hunting for and why.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“I’m in the Carolinas. Lonnie Ebert was stabbed to death with an ice pick.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Sean.”
“How about the name of the man who probably did it because he used an ice pick when he killed his brother-in-law after raping and strangling his wife … the killer’s own sister.”
“Who might that be?”
“Courtney’s uncle … my brother.”
“Oh shit.”
“Well said.”
“We haven’t been able to match that partial print on the ice pick. It was the only one that wasn’t Courtney Burke’s print. So you are related to Courtney, but you’re not her father …”
“I’m her uncle.”
There was a few seconds of silence. I could hear him breathing through the receiver, a dog barking in the background. He cleared his throat and said, “Sean … man … I’m not sure how to tell you this anyway but just tell it straight. They found a body of a girl. Outside of New Orleans. It looks a hell of a lot like Courtney. They’ll have to use dental records if they can find any teeth. Someone just about shot her head off. News media are all over it. The New Orleans PD will be processing the DNA fast. Whatever the results, it’ll have an impact on who becomes the next president of the United States.”
74
I checked into the first motel I found off an Interstate exit near Augusta. All rooms were ground level, most overlooking the parking lot in the front or the highway out back. The room smelled of bleach, cigarette smoke, and cheap perfume. The burgundy carpet was worn, a framed print of the Augusta National Golf Course hanging unevenly on the wall.
I turned on the television and found a cable news channel. The images were of police cruisers at a crime scene, blue lights flashing, paramedics, and emergency personnel converging on a wetland dotted with swamps and cypress trees.
The video cut to a twenty-something blonde reporter standing next to an airboat. She looked into the camera and said, “Police are still out here searching for the murder weapon in this grisly killing of the young woman. Investigators say the body had no identification near it, no purse or any personal effects. The body was discovered by a guide who operates a narrated boat tour of the Barataria Swamp. He said he saw what he first thought was trash near a cypress tree, but upon closer examination he found the young woman’s partially clothed body. Police don’t know if she had been raped. As to the rampant speculation that this could be the body of Courtney Burke, spotted in New Orleans just days ago … no one knows until DNA testing is complete. The victim, shot more than a dozen times in the head, was believed to have been about the same age and height as Burke. Detectives say the ends of her fingers were hacked off. Senator Logan was quoted as saying his prayers go out for the victim’s family, whomever they may be. His democratic challenger, Governor Les Connors, had no comment pending the completion of the police investigation. Reporting from Jefferson Parrish, this is Lisa Fisher, News Channel Four.”
I shut off the TV and left the stale room to get some fresh air. I had to run. To sweat. Had to clear my mind. Excess adrenaline floated like an oil slick over my heart. I needed to pound the earth with my feet, to sweat, to focus only on the potential of clear vision at the horizon and run to the edge of the world. I sprinted across the hotel parking lot, down a street, across a field and followed a path that led to a slow-moving river. I ran hard along the riverbank.
I ran by two teenage boys who were skipping stones off the surface. Bolted around an old black man fishing with a cane pole. He sat on a milk crate, threading a fat, wriggling worm onto a hook. I jogged deeper into the woods, causing a flock of wild turkeys to take flight, the beat of their wings like thunder rising from the ground.
The temperature dropped and a light rain began falling. I ran through the rain, the drops getting larger and hitting my face. Within a minute I had arrived at an old cemetery, many of the headstones partially covered in moss. Some of the grave-markers chipped and broken, a wrought iron fence worn-out, stooping, the gate sagging from age and rust. I stopped running and stood at the perimeter of the cemetery to catch my breath. I don’t know why, but I opened the unlocked gate, the hinges moaning, and I stepped inside. I walked around the graves, trying to read the inscriptions. I stood there, rain pouring, thinking about my mother, thinking about her love for art, for people — for the earth and the birds and creatures that lived among us.
There was a movement, color in a forgotten acre of aged headstones and crumbling stone captions to lives once lived. A bright red cardinal darted through the cemetery, alighting on a low-hanging limb of a pine tree. I watched the bird, its feathers damp and slightly disheveled in the rain. The bird dropped to another limb and then flew to the top of an old grave-marker. The cardinal raised its head and warbled a note. I lowered my eye and saw a lone, red fresh-cut rose resting against the headstone. I stepped over and read the inscription.