FIFTY-FOUR
Luke Palmer tossed and turned on the thin mattress that separated his back from the metal bed in the cell. Two months of freedom, a couple of weeks of sleeping under the stars had opened his pores, opened his mind and soul to something he’d lost four decades ago, freedom.
Now he was back in a cage.
He had no idea if it was day or night. His cell was sequestered in the bowels of the county lock-up. He thought it might be morning. But there were no windows. He missed the sunrises in the forest, missed the chill of the morning, the open campfire, the squirrels scampering around him, and he missed the flowers and butterflies.
He’d been kept awake in a state, somewhere between a listless sleep and consciousness, by sporadic screaming. From somewhere down the corridor of steel and concrete, came sardonic chants, yells — the nightmare language of the criminally insane.
Palmer thought about his bad luck. Years ago accused of first-degree murder when all degrees of the truth were ignored. He had to defend himself or die. It had been that simple. Now he, again, was accused of committing a crime that he had not done. Never did the cops ask him about a murder weapon. How would an ex con get a high-powered rifle? Why would someone in his shoes shoot and kill a young man and woman? Why do the cops believe he killed the girl that he found buried?
He thought about his niece, Caroline. Had her kidneys completely shut down? Would she be on dialysis the rest of her life?
He heard guards approaching. Turning to face the cell door, he saw that one was heavyset and had a thick neck and shaved head. His breathing sounded as if he was exhaling into a paper bag. The other one was tall, droopy faced, with a matchstick in one corner of his mouth. He didn’t remove the match to speak. “You got a visitor.”
“Visitor? Who? What time is it?”
“Little past eight. Guy’s name is Sean O’Brien. Sheriff says you can have a half hour with him in the receiving area. You’ll speak through the phone receptacle and have visual communications behind the glass.”
“Who the hell’s this guy O’Brien? Is he an attorney?”
The larger guard said, “I heard some of the guys on the SWAT team say he might be the best marksman in the state. He was the dude that saved your ass when you were about to become gator bites.”
FIFTY-FIVE
I watched as two guards escorted Luke Palmer into the receiving area. He walked with the same body language I’d seen on so many hard-timers. Head down. Eyes focused on the floor directly in front of him. His physical periphery subtly spoke a body language that was rough but understood. He might have well worn it along with his orange prisoner’s clothes. It said back off.
He slowly sat in front of me, the thick glass partition separating us. I picked up the phone and waited for him to do the same. He did, holding a look that didn’t waiver.
“My name’s O’Brien.”
“Suppose I owe you a thank you.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“All the same, much obliged.”
“I heard what you told the detectives about the shooting.”
“Lot a good that did.”
“I brought something to show you.” I opened a file folder and lifted out one of the photographs I printed from Molly’s camera. It was a close shot of Frank Soto. I watched Palmer’s eyes as I held the picture to the glass. “Do you recognize this man?”
Palmer studied the image for a few seconds. “Yeah, that’s the guy I saw that night when the hippies were at the bonfire.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I remember faces. I mess around with charcoal, pencil and some pen ‘n ink. I had an old con teach me how to draw people. I always drew as a kid. I sorta got a way of seeing a face and spitting it out on paper. And I can do it pretty fast.”
“You’re an artist?”
“I’m not a con artist. Seen plenty of them in prison. I guess I’m just a guy who’s always liked to draw.” Palmer smiled. “One time I drew the faces of almost all the men in the cellblock. Did it for practice.”
“You said you saw the face of the man who shot Molly and Mark?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you draw that face?”
“Suppose I could, if I had a pencil and some paper.”
“How long would it take you?”
“About ten minutes.”
I looked at the clock on the wall. I had twenty minutes left with Palmer. “Wait there a second.” I dropped the phone and stepped to a guard. “I need a piece of paper and a pencil.”
“What for?”
I told him and he said, “Pencil could be considered a weapon.”
“Palmer is going to sketch a quick picture for us. He’ll hand the pencil back to you when he’s done. You can watch him the entire time.”
“I don’t know—”
“The drawing he does could help us find a guy who killed three people and probably will kill at least one more.”
“I’m going to watch him like a hawk.”
“I think he’s used to that.”
The guard went into another room, came back with a pencil and a piece of 8 1/2 by 11-inch white paper. He placed the material in front of Palmer.
“Were you in a position to have seen any identifying features?” I asked Palmer.
“Close enough. One thing you learn in a prison yard is how to look for identifying features, like the way a man carries himself. What he’s hiding.”
Palmer closed his eyes for a moment, his face reflective. Then he looked down at the paper and began drawing. He was fast. Sketching the general outline of the face, working in the hair, and then beginning with the details of eyes, nose and mouth. I said, “You could have easily been a police sketch artist.”
“Or a tattoo artist.”
I thought about the tattoo on Soto’s arm. “Tell me about everything you’ve seen in the forest since you’ve been out there.”
He grinned. “I just came from a place full of mean sons-a-bitches. You expect to find badness in prison. You don’t expect to find it in a forest, at least I didn’t. And, boy, was I was wrong.”
FIFTY-SIX
Palmer sketched for a moment in silence. He worked in detail on the angular face, and then he raised his eyes to me. “All right, I’ll go over most everything I can remember. I’ve already told the detectives this. They listen but hear what they want to hear. Look man, I know evil. I’ve lived with it in cellblocks most of my life. But in those woods, in that forest, there’s more weird shit that you can ever imagine. I’ve seen everything from hard asses running meth labs, to fuckin’ devil worshipers sacrificing goats and acting like they wanted to cut a girl’s throat. You taking notes? Want me to go slow, or just let it out?”
“I’m taking notes in my head. Just let it all out, tell me everything.”
He nodded and, for the next fifteen minutes, I listened to Palmer as he began his observations the first day he entered the Ocala National Forest. He spoke, stopped, sketched, and began speaking again. I didn’t interrupt. He concluded by saying, “And this dude I’m drawing, when he shot those kids, that wasn’t the first time I saw him.”
“When was the first time?”
He looked up from the sketch. “It was when he lowered the back window of a car he was in. He was a passenger. There were two other men. This guy lowered the window and tossed a half smoked cigar out. It caught the dry brush and almost started a forest fire. I put out the fire, and I buried the damn cigar.”
“You told me what you’ve seen in there. But you haven’t said why you were there.”
“I told the others, the detectives.”