The chanting stopped. People looked in Palmer’s direction. One man lifted a flashlight from the table and pointed it toward Palmer. The man in black yelled, “Don’t let him escape!”
Palmer ran. He ran hard. Zigzagging. Cutting through underbrush. He had a good head start on the men. Most were half naked and would have a hard time running through the thorns and saber leaves as Palmer bolted.
After running for at least a half mile, Palmer heard no one. He felt sure they’d given up and turned around. He was exhausted. His chest hurt, his heart still beating fast. He leaned against a tree to catch his breath, looked up at the moon beyond the branches and mumbled, “God, looks like it’s time for another flood.”
He wanted to make camp, and make it far away from the crazies in the woods. But at this point, Palmer wasn’t sure where he could go that would be safe. One place, he thought.
A bombing range.
SIXTEEN
The next morning I swallowed three aspirins with a chug of orange juice and then put on a pot of coffee. Following dinner last night on Nick’s boat, he broke out a second bottle of ouzo. The three of us raised glasses to Nick’s continued luck at sea and to my future as a short-run charter captain. It was close to 2:00 a.m. when Dave lumbered off to Gibraltar, and I found Jupiter waiting for me like a 38-foot waterbed. I crawled into the master bunk next to Max who slept closest to the large porthole window, the cool ocean trade winds blowing down on us.
Now, with the morning sun coming through the portholes like harsh spotlights, I made three eggs scrambled with Cajun hot sauce for me, one egg mixed with cheese for Max. I sliced the toast, piled everything on two paper plates, and we went topside to the fly bridge. I rolled up the isinglass side curtains, sat in the captain’s chair and placed Max’s breakfast on a bench seat where she stood waiting. As we ate, a pelican soared by us. It was followed by two sea gulls, one of the birds pausing, circling the fly bridge and squawking in hopes of a handout. Max ate faster.
The breeze brought the scent of saltwater and the damp smells of an incoming tide to reclaim roots and barnacle-laden dock posts. I could just hear the sound of breakers across the road and over the dunes. The pulley on a moored sailboat clanked one note as the breeze jostled it. The wind changed and brought the smell of strong, dark coffee and bacon coming from Gibraltar, across the dock from Jupiter. Dave had slept with all of the boat’s windows open. I pictured him watching the news and reading a morning paper at the same time. I glanced at Nick’s boat, St. Michael. Nothing. No movement. No one topside. Joe, the marina cat, stretched out across St. Michael’s transom. But no sign of Nick. I figured he’d sleep until noon and then get out of his bunk with a ravenous appetite and a serious hangover.
I had awakened thinking about Elizabeth and Molly Monroe. I’d hoped that Molly was with someone at all times. I didn’t know if Elizabeth had someone to be with her. She didn’t say, and I never asked. Maybe it was because Detective Lewis said they were staking out her home, and officers were sipping coffee in her restaurant. I looked at the time on my cell phone: 8:45 a.m., then punched the number I’d stored. Lewis answered in two rings, his voice sounding tired at the beginning of day. I said, “Detective, I have an idea that might help your investigation into Frank Soto.”
“I’m listening.”
“If you check tattoo parlors near the University of Florida, maybe between Ocala and Gainesville, you might find the ink artist who recently gave Soto his tat.”
“How do you know it was recent?”
“The ink looked bright. It looked new, similar to fresh paint. There was redness around the art, like his skin was sensitive.”
“That’s a lot of speculation, Mr. O’Brien.”
“It might be worth the effort to find the artist.”
“Maybe. Lots of tat shops. Sometimes these fellas aren’t too eager to talk about who they had for canvases, if you know what I mean.”
“What I know is that Soto tracked Molly from Gainesville to Sanford. He tried to take her out along with her mother. If he’s some kind of enforcer, as you said, or a hit man, it might be related to something Molly saw.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. She was recently in the Ocala National Forest doing butterfly research with her boyfriend. She thinks she saw a man hiding in the woods watching them. Molly and Mark left quickly.”
“That’s a possibility, but seems to me like a remote one if she didn’t see this guy do something illegal.”
“Maybe the guy thought she saw more than she did, and whoever is behind it is making an effort to keep her from telling anyone.”
“O’Brien, I do appreciate your help. I can certainly tell you have a background in criminal investigation. Ocala and Gainesville are out of my area. I’ll let the FDLE know, they’re keeping an eye on her, at least for a few days, at her apartment in Gainesville. If they feel the need to start talking to tattoo artists, they can sure do it. Got to go, O’Brien. Late for court.” He disconnected. A laughing gull flew overhead.
I thought of Molly, her dead father’s gun heavy in her purse, Soto probably heavy on her mind. She would study the tiny building blocks of the planet — insects, plants, the stuff of life, and one day would march out there on the world’s stage and try to save it for audiences yet to be born. She would open boxes of butterflies pointed to the sun and release them into a new world where a Pandora’s box of trade wind pollution might send them spiraling to the ground. I thought of Elizabeth. Courage under fire. The tight, hidden pleas in her voice, as if holding back the seismic screams from the buried primal gene only planted in the soul of a mother. In my mind, I played back the look Soto gave me. He was a snake poised to strike again. When and where I didn’t know. But I knew somebody needed to do something to prevent it. Why investigate a murder or a double murder if you can prevent the crime from happening? By absolute luck, I did it once for Molly and Elizabeth. The question was, could I do it again for them before time ran out?
I called Elizabeth. “Have you reached Molly?”
“Yes, thank God. I should have called you, Sean. Her cell battery died, and she forgot to recharge it. Molly’s one of those rare girls who doesn’t need to be texting or talking on her phone.”
“I’m glad she’s okay.”
“Thank you for caring. Want to come by the restaurant for lunch… or dinner?”
“Thanks, but I have to be on the road for a few hours. I’ll take a rain check.”
“Okay. Bye, Sean.”
I glanced over to Max who was licking her lips and staring at the small piece of toast left on my plate. “Okay, it’s yours.” I handed it to her. “I might be gone for a little while. I’ll leave you with Dave. The last time Nick watched you, Kim in the bar had to bring you back to the boat.”
I showered, filled Max's plastic bin with dry food and met Dave on his boat as Nick was climbing out of St. Michael like a hermit crab stepping from its shell. Nick approached us with a steaming mug of Greek coffee. “My hair hurts,” he mumbled.
Dave grinned. “Last we saw, you began snoring so loud, Ol Joe left for a quieter area of the dock.”
“That cat was back when I woke up ‘cause he knows I have fish heads to give him.” Nick sipped from the mug, then asked, “Where you going? I can tell you’re leaving ‘cause hotdog is sittin’ on Dave’s boat.”
“I’m going to visit some tattoo parlors.”