The Butterfly Forest (Mystery/Thriller) (38 page)

Thunder rolled over the sea and buried the sound of a single bark from Max, a subconscious alarm in my head, an obscure omen beyond the cusp of the horizon.                                  

NINETY-FOUR

The next morning we awoke at sunrise and showered; then Elizabeth put on one of my old shirts.  She moved around
Jupiter’s
small galley and made omelets, turkey sausage, fried potatoes and onions.  Her body language was more relaxed preparing breakfast, moving between three pans, the toaster, and the brewed coffee in the pot.  “Can I fix Max a little plate?” she asked, picking up a paper plate.

“Cut the links into pieces and maybe she’ll eat slower,” I said, opening the side windows and salon door, allowing a cross-breeze to take the place of the air conditioner.    

We ate and Elizabeth said, “Living on a boat makes you want to downsize and toss all the clutter in your life into a big dumpster somewhere.  I wonder what it’d be like to actually travel around on a boat.”

“Sailboat is the way to go.  Quiet, it’s just the wind and the water.”

She sipped a glass of orange juice and looked across the marina.  “This world is so different from your old home on the river.  It’s a different kind of quiet there.  Which do you prefer, the marina life or the solitude of the river?”

I remembered what Gonzales said about
solitude
, my stomach tightening as I swallowed the eggs.  “Both places have their pluses and minuses.  Right now, because you are here, I’d rather be at the marina.  If we were on the river, my shack of solitude, I’d rather be there with you.”

She smiled.  “That’s sweet.  Maybe when this is over, we can take a boat trip.  That would be a world I’ve never experienced, one that you might have to pry me away from, assuming I don’t get seasick and become a green-faced pain-in-the-butt for you.”

My phone vibrated on the bar.  It was Dave.  “Good morning,” I said.

“That term is indeed relative,” his voice deep as his pipes opened.

“What’s the matter?”  I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

“I was watching the daybreak newscast... they’re reporting that the body of a park ranger, Ed Crews, the man you thought went MIA from the forest, was found last night.”

“Where?”

“In the forest.  Found by two teenagers on ATVs.  Kids will probably have nightmares for life.”

I pushed the plate back and stood.  “What’d they find?”

“The corpse was sitting upright, under a tree.  The body had been decapitated.  The head was stuck on the end of a broken limb.”

I said nothing.  Elizabeth’s eyes were wide, her lips growing tighter.

Dave said, “Police say there was a note, a piece of paper stuck in Crews’ mouth.  Someone wrote: ‘Heads up, the spineless one will be next.’  Sounds like Pablo Gonzales sent you a personal and very graphic message.”

I held my breath for a long moment.  “Want some coffee?”

“Do you have a fresh pot brewed?”

“Yeah, and if your stomach wasn’t turned by the newscast, you might like some of the hearty breakfast Elizabeth made.”

“Twist my arm.  I’ll be right over.  It’s a beautiful blue-sky morning.  Let’s dine on
Jupiter’s
cockpit.”

“No sign of a fake fishermen or other intruders in our little boat world?”

“Seems to be clear as the sky.”

THE THREE OF US SAT IN deck chairs at the small table in the cockpit.  Elizabeth didn’t want to hear any of the details surrounding the discovery of Crews’ body.  Dave sipped from a mug of black coffee, a slight breeze tossing his white hair.  He said, “I’ve been thinking about what Gonzales told you.”

“And, have you reached a conclusion that us non-sociopaths can relate to?”  I asked.

“Perhaps.  The overriding theme in Marquez’s novel,
A Hundred Years of Solitu
de, is how man is doomed to repeat his mistakes, even when five years of rain washes away every semblance of indiscretions made in the village of Maconda.  Marquez, incorporating a linear style of storytelling with surreal prose, leads us to believe that man is doomed to repeat his atrocities because we’re all wired with some defective, inherited genetic material since the Garden of Eden.  He contends that man is destined to recycle the mistakes and imprudence of his forefathers…
Paradise
Lost
.”

“I don’t follow you,” Elizabeth said.

Dave nodded.  “I’m just thinking, verbalizing aloud.  Blame it on the strong Blue Mountain coffee.  I guess my point is this: Gonzales sees no hope, no salvation for the sins of our fathers because most of us are doomed to repeat them.  He’s put himself in a self-ordained position to eliminate the repeat offenders from the docket.  In other words, he’s got a God complex, maybe similar to Hitler, whereby he feels he’s been chosen to cut the diseased or the weak ones out of humanity’s herd.  That would make him the worst kind of psychopath because he would believe all that he does, all he accomplishes, is for the greater good.  A killer who can rationalize his deeds because he believes a higher power has chosen him as an elite foot soldier is extremely dangerous.”

I said, “So you think Gonzales believes rendering me in a state of paralysis will stop a repeat of the evils that cycled through a village like Maconda.”

“That’s so sick,” Elizabeth said.

“Indeed,” agreed Dave, “but a psychopath only needs a fantasy cause to create a platform of illusions.”       

The sun went behind a cloud.

The crimson light was no bigger than a dime.

The shade of tomato soup as it swept across
Jupiter’s
transom.  It was almost subliminal.  It could have been a reflection from any of the dozens of boats bobbing in the moorings.  But there is no reflection when the sun goes behind a cloud.

NINETY-FIVE

“Get inside!” I said.

“What?” Dave asked.

“A shooter!”  We scrambled as Nick leaned out of the salon door on
St. Michael
. 

I saw the red dot flash for a second across Elizabeth’s breasts.  “Get down!” I yelled, flattening Elizabeth to the transom.  A silencer suppressed the crack of the rifle, the noise resembling a wooden mallet striking the dock somewhere.  A second round sliced through the water between
Jupiter
and
St. Michael
just as Nick was closing his salon door, a steaming mug of coffee sloshing over his hand.

“Oh God!” Elizabeth screamed.  I grabbed her arm, pulling her to the bulkhead of
Jupiter
, Max right behind us.  Dave crouched low and ran across the cockpit to the salon doors.  Elizabeth, Max and I followed.  I glanced back at Nick.  He was perplexed, hair sticking out, face bloated from a hangover and heavy sleep.  He held his now half mug of coffee and looked like he’d just stepped into a bad dream.

 “Get down, Nick!” I screamed, reaching for the Glock under my shirt.  The next round blew a quarter-sized hole through the glass door next to Nick’s head.  He dropped his coffee mug and dove headfirst into the bay.       
       I pushed Elizabeth into
Jupiter’s
salon.  “Stay down!  Go below!”  I turned to Dave who was crouching behind the salon wall.  “You hit?”

“No.”

“Can you see Nick?”

“No, but I hear him.  I think he swam under the dock.”

“The shooter’s using a rifle with a silencer and a laser scope.”

“Where do you think he’s positioned?”

“He has to be elevated enough to shoot over
Gibraltar
.”

Dave nodded.  “The only building that high is Jackson Marine.  Their boat storage facility is three floors.”

“The Glock won’t do much good.  Your 30.06 is still aboard
Jupiter
after I cleaned it for you last time I was here.”

“Where?”

“Port closet in the master.  Get it for me.  I want to keep an eye out there.”

“Your arm’s in a sling!”

“Please, Dave, get it.”

He returned in less than thirty seconds, the rifle in his hands.  “Is the scope accurate?” I asked.

“In no wind, you’ll get a one inch drop at the first two hundred yards.”

“Jackson Marine is about two-fifty.”  I looked at the surface of the bay, and then at the wind gauge spinning on a sailboat moored about fifty yards in the center of the water.  There was a slight ripple on the surface, the breeze about seven miles per hour out of the northwest.

Dave said, “Don’t stand.  He might take your head off.”

“What the fuck is goin’ on?” shouted Nick from under the dock.

“Stay down, Nick!” I said.  “Stay out of sight.  The shooter might still be out there.”

“I’m wrapped around the dock post like a crab.  Barnacles and shells are cuttin’ the crap outta my hands.  Why’s some asshole blowing a hole through my door?”

I said, “He’s trying to kill my friends.”

“Good fuckin’ morning, Sean O’Brien.”

Dave asked, “Nick, can you see around the piling?  Toward Jackson Marine, maybe the rooftop.”

“Hell yeah I can see.  Looks like some dude’s lying down on his belly, on the roof, right above the A in the word marine.”

I saw the red laser dot move slowly across
Jupiter’s
cockpit.  I gestured to Dave, and he nodded, his eyes following the tiny red circle.  “Dave, watch the dot.  I’ll have to get off a shot from
Jupiter
, and it’s bobbing in the tide, with the current and wind.”  I chambered a round, took off the safety.

Dave said, “The dot is starboard, moving very slowly.”

I dropped the sling and felt the stitches tug in my shoulder.  I stepped to port side, braced the rifle against
Jupiter’s
bulkhead and brought the scope up to my eye.  I found him in seconds.  Recognized the baseball cap.  It was turned backward so the shooter could see through his scope. 

Dave shouted, “Can’t see the laser dot!  He could be sighted down on you.”

I said nothing.  Through the scope, I watched the shooter’s body language change.  He spotted me, his movements quick.  I figured I had maybe three seconds to get a shot off before he did.

One-thousand-one.  I felt
Jupiter
rise a half inch in a small swell.

One-thousand-two.  I lowered the crosshairs to correct for the boat’s movement.

One thousand-three.  The laser burst through my scope as I squeezed the trigger.

The New York Yankees hat popped in the air propelled by a cloud of pink mist.  The shooter fell dead.

“You got him!” shouted Nick.  He pulled himself out of the tannin water.

“It’s clear,” I said.  

Elizabeth came up from below deck, holding Max in her arms.  “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice a mix between anger and compassion.

“We’re okay,” I said, setting the rifle down.

“I heard Nick, did you… did you kill him?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Will they
keep
coming, Sean?  Tell me.  How can we live like this?  How can we look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives?”                  

NINETY-SIX

For more than two hours, Nick, Elizabeth, Dave and I were questioned—questioned separately by five agencies.  The hit parade of initials began with the FBI and ended with ICE, somewhere in between, we met the DEA, FLDE, a representative from the Justice Department, and two from Homeland Security.  Toss in Detective Sandberg from Marion County, two investigators from Volusia County, and we had a who’s who from international, national, regional and local law enforcement.

As Detective Sandberg was leaving, I asked, “Any word on Frank Soto?”

He blew out a long breath and said, “He either was vaporized when that Navy fighter jet dropped the bomb, or he disappeared.  We found nothing.”  His eyes opened wider, glancing at Elizabeth for a second, and now taking in the full measure of what I’d done to the trigger man.  “I’d like to tell you to take it easy, but I guess that’s not possible, not anymore.  Be careful, O’Brien.”     

When most of them left, and after the ME had picked up the body from the Jackson Marine rooftop, Agents Tim Jenkins and Dan Keyes stood in
Gibraltar
’s
salon.  Dave sat at his bar, Nick and Elizabeth on the couch, and me sitting on a deck chair with Max in my lap.  Agent Jenkins from ICE said, “You got lucky this time, Mr. O’Brien.  If there’s one resource that’s infinite in Pablo Gonzales’ arsenal, it’s his manpower.  You took out one.  He’s got many more to take his place.  How long can you keep firing lucky shots?”

Dave stood.  “Perhaps your energies would be better served following the GPS tracking lead that Sean left for you.”

Keyes said, “That’s where Agent Flores and another two dozen agents from the FBI, ICE and locals have converged in the Tampa Bay area.  They’ve been on a loose stake-out since we lost the signal from the tracker.  We’re watching a former banana packing warehouse in the Ybor City area of Tampa.”