“I’ve given them everything I know. They’re doing surveillance at Molly’s apartment and her mother’s place down in Sanford.”
She reached out and touched my hand, her face filled with compassion. I could feel the pulse in her fingertips. Her heart picked up its pace as she said, “Be careful, please. You have a marina family that really cares about you, okay?”
“Thanks, Kim. And thanks for the beer.”
“Anytime.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek, started to say something else and stopped. Her bright eyes were now measured with trouble, and all she said was, “Goodnight, Sean.”
“Goodnight.” I walked down L doc to the sounds of breakers rolling in the distance and ropes stiffening and moaning in a tug-of-war with a rising tide. I could see light spilling through portholes on some of the cruisers, the glow dancing off the moving dark water in the bay.
St. Michael was far from being battened down and tucked in for the night. Inside the salon, I saw Nick laughing and talking with a blond in cut-off shorts. As I walked by the boat, I could hear his storytelling over the sound of Greek music, the smell of broiled fish and garlic and lemon coming from the small grill anchored on his cockpit.
I walked ahead toward Gibraltar. Dave’s lights were on, and I could see the bluish glow from the television screen flickering from his salon. The sliding glass doors were wide open, Max sleeping on one of Dave’s overstuffed leather chairs. He nursed a vodka and tonic and watched CNN.
“Anybody home?” I asked, stepping aboard. Max flew off the chair and circled me. Tail moving like a maestro’s baton. She stood on her hind legs as I bent down to pick her up before walking in the salon.
Dave grinned. “There’s no denying that Max believes you’re related to her. I’m only Uncle Dave. You’re definitely her papa, as Nick calls it.”
I smiled. “Looks like Nick's got company tonight.”
Dave nodded. “Don’t know where he gets the energy. I was about to freshen my drink. How about a nightcap?”
“I had half a beer with Kim—“
“Then finish the second half with me. After you called me when you left the crime scene, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you saw and where you saw it.”
When Dave said that, I knew he’d been doing some research while I drove back from the girl’s gravesite. I said, “Rather than a beer, a shot of Jameson over ice might get me to sleep tonight before Max starts her snoring.”
Dave grinned, got up from his chair, fixed himself a fresh vodka and tonic and poured a shot of Irish whiskey over ice for me. “To getting a grasp on this runaway train,” he said, lifting his glass to mine in a midnight toast. He returned to his chair, and I sat on the couch, Max in my lap as Dave began. “We both know that the Ocala National Forest is an extremely interesting environment, a place that possesses a rather dark history.” He sipped his drink, his thoughts entering places where I knew Dave kept deep repositories of experience. He said, “It just might be the nation’s bloodiest ground and its most vast cemetery.”
TWENTY-FIVE
“The body of a teenager has been found in the Ocala National Forest,” came the newsbreak on Dave’s television. He reached for his remote and turned up the sound. The reporter, standing in a wooded area, said, “And police aren’t releasing the identity until the victim’s next of kin can be notified. An autopsy to determine the exact cause of death is set for tomorrow… we’ll have a complete update on Eyewitness News Sunrise.”
Dave hit the mute button and sipped his vodka. He stared at the silent screen for a few seconds, his mind working, probably dissecting scenarios as to why the girl was killed. He grunted. “Since a lot of our nation’s history began in and around what is now the Ocala National Forest, it has a history as dark as some of those merciless events.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s go back, say 450 odd years or so. A quarter-million Timucuan Indians died in and around the forest.”
“A quarter-million?”
“Maybe more. They died from diseases imported by the Europeans, in particular, the Spanish Conquistadors. Advance three hundred years and we have some of the bloodiest battles in the history of America fought in there, the Seminole wars.”
I sipped my whiskey, Max’s eyes closing. I said, “It’s a big forest. A lot of American history began there. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad place. It’s actually quite peaceful and beautiful in there.”
He swirled the ice in his drink and said, “The locals call it ‘the forest,’ because some don’t want to call it America’s largest cemetery.” Dave lifted a sheet of paper off the table next to his chair. “I printed this out about an hour ago. Campers or hunters usually are the ones to discover these corpses, and most remain unidentified. Serial killer Aileen Wuornos left one of her victims in the forest. Amber Peck and John Parker, both were camping in the forest when a man, Leo Boatman, snuck up and slaughtered them. He hitched a ride across the state, and went into the forest looking to murder.”
“So you think he was drawn there, drawn there to commit murder?”
“Who knows? This murder list here goes on, suffice to say, the forest has a certain aura about it. The forest does attract known pagan groups for various festivals and ceremonies that coincide with changes in seasons.”
“I’m betting the summer solstice was one of them.”
Dave nodded and crushed a piece of ice with his back teeth. “The Midsummer’s Eve event is a remarkable annual occurrence that has deep, sometimes sinister roots, you know. But there’s also a certain enchantment to it, captured before Shakespeare and carried into modern times. The fantasy of slipping into a forest under a full moon at just before midnight to witness fairies and gnomes dancing around a fire has fascinated people for many millennia.”
“I believe the girl found dead today was traveling, like a gypsy, with the group of so-called Rainbow people. One of them could have killed her, or it could have been Soto if he was on the prowl. Inkman told me Soto spent time with these people. But if it was Soto, why get a tattoo of your victim? Even if it doesn’t resemble the face of the girl found today, the fairy wings connect dots and can build his profile in FBI databases.”
Dave set the paper down and placed his glass on it. “You told me Inkman said Soto wanted a fairy, like medieval times, so he took one. Took as in a sexual conquest, rape perhaps… or as in taking her life?”
“Maybe neither. If he was on some kind of drug, a hallucinogen, he could have imagined the whole thing.”
“The girl’s body is no figment of a psychopath’s warped imagination.”
“No, but she could have been killed by someone else. Or, if Soto did do it, how could it be connected to Molly and Elizabeth?”
“Blame it on the Grey Goose, I don’t follow you, Sean.”
“What if the girl found today saw something that Soto also thought Molly and her boyfriend saw? Then, there would be the common thread in this — something much deeper. Whoever the kid in the grave was, with her broken wings and broken neck, she also could have stumbled upon whatever it was that Soto doesn’t want anyone to know about.”
“And, it simply may have been the girl’s body itself. Soto might believe that Molly and her boyfriend saw the killing or saw him digging a grave. They got in their car and left before he could silence them. Maybe something delayed Soto from getting them before they left the forest. So now he’s stalking to silence the only living witnesses to avoid a life behind bars.”
I said nothing. Max closed her eyes, her chin resting on my thigh.
Dave said, “Let the constables who patrol the forest track this guy down.”