The Butterfly Forest (Mystery/Thriller) (9 page)

“I’ll do that.  Speaking of endangered plants, I saw a bunch of plants that looked like they were old as dinosaurs.  Kinda fern-like things.  Saw ‘em way back in there.”

District Ranger Ed Crews studied Palmer’s face for a moment.  He said, “Those are most likely coontie.  Don’t start diggin’ around them.  The forest is one of the few places they still live.  We’d like to keep it that way.  St. Johns River is about a mile east.” 

EIGHTEEN

By the time I crossed the Volusia County line into Marion County, I had made calls and eliminated three tattoo shops in Gainesville and four in Ocala.  A receptionist, who worked part-time as a body-piercing artist at Den of Ink, answered the last call.  She said one of the best artists, “A dude who could really capture fairies,” used to work at The Art House, but she couldn’t remember if he was still there.  She told me his name was Ron something, and was called Inkman.  I dialed The Art House.  After the tenth ring, I was about to disconnect when a voice from the sixties came on the line, “Art House… picture it on you… peace.”  The words sounded as if they crawled through vocal cords thick with nicotine and mucus.

“Is this Inkman?”

“It could be… who’s callin’?

“Name’s O’Brien.  I heard Inkman is the go-to guy when it comes to body art.”

“Well, lemme see… depends on what kind of art you’re lookin’ for.  We got three very talented dudes here.  And Stacey, she’s a chick.  Man, she can blow you away with color, got the feminine touch with a bold flair.  Know what I mean, dude?”  The man coughed and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.  What I have in mind was something for my ol’ lady, you know… we go to so some of those medieval events, reenactments.  They have lots of knights, ladies and a few smelly warlocks.  Follow me?”

“Yeah, you pretty much described a lot of our customers.  Inkman’s the artist for you, bro.  He’s the best when it comes to drawin’ witches, bitches, warlocks and killer fairies.  I’m Gary, I was just puttin’ on some coffee.”  There was a long, rasping cough. “You wanna make an appointment, or just let the wind blow ya in here?”

“I can put the wind to my back and be there in an hour.”

“You got it, and it’s a good day ‘cause Ron—I mean, Inkman, don’t look too hung over.  Just messin’ with you.  In an hour, buddy.”

The Art House was a 1950’s bungalow-style home, squatting beneath two large banyan trees.  The building had white side panels, big front windows, and in one window a neon sign flashed OPEN in blue letters with the O burned out.  To the right of the sign were the words: TATTOO
•
PIERCINGS.  The second window read: SMOKE SHOP
•
JEWELRY
•
INCENSE.  Four cars were in the small lot. 

I stepped to an alleyway where a new Corvette was parked next to garbage cans.  I picked up a crumpled cigarette package from the ground, lifted the lid off one can and looked inside before dropping in the trash.  The top plastic bag was ripped open.  I spotted two used syringes among a box of chicken bones spilling from a Popeye’s carton.

At the front door, the smell of burning incense met me as three people, all in their late teens, walked out.  None seemed excited about new tattoos or piercing.  Maybe they were shopping for incense.  Doubtful. 

The guy who I believed had answered the phone sat on a stool behind a glass counter filled with body piercing jewelry and Indian turquoise necklaces, bracelets and rings.  A cigarette hung loosely from his mouth, the smoke making a near perfect trail by his nose and left eye as it rose toward the sagging ceiling.  A Led Zeppelin song blared from hidden speakers.  He wore a train engineer’s striped hat, flannel shirt with overalls.  He looked up from a Rolling Stone magazine and grinned.  A silver ring looped through his lower lip.  A metallic dot, the size of a thumbtack, seemed to be screwed into his left nostril.  He glanced at his watch and said, “One hour.  You gotta be O’Brien, right?”

“Right.  And you’re Gary.”

“Yep.”  He looked over my shoulder, his eyes pushing through the screened door.  “Where’s your old lady?”

“Lady Thunder?”

“Yeah, man, I guess.”

“She’s back at the shack.”

“So who’s gettin’ the tat, you know, the one with the fairy?”  He took a deep drag off his cigarette.

“Me.”

“You?”

“Anything wrong with that?”  I stepped closer to the counter. 

He looked up, an edgy grin spreading.  Black tar filled between each of his lower front teeth like pencil lead.  He blurted, “Oh, no.  Hell no.  Matter of fact, we had an ol boy in here not long ago.  He got one.  Turned out great… sort of like an angel in stained glass.  Some of Inkman’s best work.”  

NINETEEN

“Where’s Inkman?”

“He’s back in his room.  Each artist has his own set up.  Different inks.  Different styles.  You know, different strokes for different folks.  C’mon back. ”  He sucked the last quarter inch of cigarette down to the filter, held the smoke deep in his lungs before exhaling through his nostrils.  I followed him down a hall.  A woman was coming our way.  She was thin.  Red, blue and yellow hair.  Faced filled with metal.  Wide, deep-set blue-green eyes.  Long sleeves.  A wet stain the size of a dime on her right sleeve.  She smiled at me and said.  “Are you here for a piercing?”

“I have too many scars already.”

She grinned.  “And I have eight years experience.  Very gentle, and specialize in doing genitalia and nipples.”

I smiled.  The Led Zeppelin song,
A Whole Lotta Love
, seemed to ricochet down the hall lined with poster art.  In the corner of the hall, I saw a dead cockroach lying on its back.  Looked at the woman’s fingernails painted black and said, “Maybe next time.”  

She smiled, dimples popping, hugged her arms and walked toward the front.

We entered Inkman’s den of colors.  After Gary made introductions, I looked at the samples of art on the walls.  Hundreds of framed drawings.  Inkman was older.  Mid-fifties.  Thin face.  Indian nose.  No metal in his skin.  Gray hair slicked straight back, and tats covering both arms from the wrist to the shoulders.  Some of the blue ink was faded and smeared from age and time.  He wore a tank top stretched over the broad chest of a long-time gym rat.  Scarred knuckles.  Hands of a boxer.  His voice was straight out of Brooklyn.  “How ya doin’?  So sit down.  First time, eh?”

I glanced toward the door and said, “Thanks, Gary.”  He nodded, fished for a cigarette in his overalls and left.  I turned back to Inkman.  “Yeah, it’s my first time.”

He looked at me, his eyes probing, rubbing a wide finger down one ink-smeared arm.  “So, what did you have in mind?”

“I hear no one can draw a woman or a fairy better than you.”

His pupils narrowed for one heartbeat.  “That’s what you hear?”

“Yes.”

“Now, where would you hear that?”

“Your art speaks for itself.  I saw it.  You didn’t sign it, but I know it was yours.”  

“You’re a cop.”

“You think?”

“Thirty years in this business, I can tell.  I’ve had you guys sniffing in more shops than I remember.  Not everybody in skin art is selling drugs.”

I looked over to a framed sample of his work.  Unlike the tattoo I saw on Soto’s arm, in this picture, the fairy was clothed.  But the unmistakable style of a master artist was the same.  The delicate features of her face, that of a beautiful lady and a mischievous woman, angelic, playful and sensuous.  The dark blue wings, large like a rare butterfly’s wings embroidered in iridescent shades of sky blue.   

“You have a lot of talent,” I said.

“Why you here?”

“You tattooed a man recently.  His name is Frank Soto.  Gave him an image on his upper left arm a lot like the one on your wall.  His was of a nude woman.  She looked younger than the one in your frame.  But I can tell it came from the same hand.  Your art is like a fingerprint.  It’s an artist’s statement and, Inkman, yours has a very stylistic flair.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“What did Soto tell you?  Why did he choose the fairy on his arm?”

“I don’t ask my customers why they want what they want.  It’s none of my fuckin’ business, and it’s none of yours.”

“When he pulled a pistol in the faces of a mother and her daughter, Frank Soto made it my business.”

“Hey, man, I’m just an artist, not some shrink.”  

“And I’m just a guy trying to prevent a double homicide.”

“What?”

“That’s right.  We have reason to believe the asshole you inked will return and finish the job.  People talk when they’re getting a tattoo.  Sometimes it’s to help tolerate the pain of the needle, but most of the time it’s to give the artist a better understanding of the importance of a new portrait they’ll wear for life.  What did he tell you?”

Inkman was silent.  His jaw line popped.  A muscle moved like a worm embedded beneath his left eye.  I said, “Your jewelry princess is a junkie.  Did she get her morning needle in here?  In that chair?  You’ve got syringes in the garbage, and I’m betting those customers who walked out when I walked in bought more than incense.  You tell me now.  I leave.  I won’t come back.  Won’t come back with dogs, warrants and reasons.” 

His black eyes turned to marble.  I said, “And now, Inkman, you have a chance to do something that can bring a fairytale ending to a potential horror story.  You can be a silent hero.  Prevent two innocent killings.  What
was
his reason?”

Inkman lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and leaned against the arm of the leather chair used by his customers.  “The dude said he wanted the tat as a souvenir.  Said he saw something down in the forest.”

“Saw what?  What forest?”

“Ocala National.”

“What’d he see?”

“Some kind of religious ceremony.  Said the women were dressed as fairies.  Lots of drums beating all night.  He said the women were like fireflies around the light of the bonfire.  He mentioned he was on his way to meet somebody when he saw all these fuckers, Rainbow people, or whatnot.  Anyway, they were pulling their beat-up vans and trucks way the hell down in the forest for a week of fire and drums.  Looks like this guy sort of stumbled among them.  Said he took some hits.  Some kind of sage, sort of like acid, called it a salvia plant.  But he said it was like nothin’ he’d ever done before, he thought he’d traveled back in time, you know like some fuckin’ land of druids.  Said in that land women are for the taking.  So he took one.  That’s all he said.  He took one.  He wanted a tattoo to keep her close.  Now what the fuck is that suppose to mean?” 

TWENTY

Detective Lewis sounded guarded.  Or maybe slightly annoyed when I called to tell him I’d found a tattoo parlor and now had a lead in the case for him.

“What kind of lead?” he asked.

I told him about my conversation with Inkman and said, “The only thing we have that connects Molly Monroe to Frank Soto before the take-down in the Walmart lot is the Ocala National Forest.”

“What do you mean?”

“Molly and her boyfriend, as you know, were there recently scouting for areas to release endangered butterflies.  Frank Soto told this tat artist he was in the forest and met up with a group of free spirits, called them Rainbow people.  They’d converged in the forest to sit around bonfires, dance and use some kind of peyote or something to take them on a trip without packing.”

“Are they still in there?”

”I don’t know, but it’s worth checking out.  The summer solstice, often called Midsummer’s Eve, just occurred.  It’s a time of year with a long history of pagan rituals and fairy dances.  Maybe there’s a missing girl, someone dressed in a fairy costume, a woman who met up with Soto and never made it back to her tribe.”

“Far as I can tell, there’s no missing persons report coming from the national forest, but it’s not my jurisdiction.”

“These Rainbow people could be too out of it to report the sighting of Haley’s Comet.  Or maybe one of them told the ranger at the station something.  Unless you tell me you have a whereabouts on Soto, it’s all we have that ties him directly to an area where Molly Monroe was before Soto showed up at the butterfly facility.  It’s your case, and I don’t know the locals up here.”

I heard a deep sigh.  He said, “All right, O’Brien.  I’ll talk with Marion County investigators.  I have a friend in the department.  I’ll give ‘em the heads up and see if they can find something in that place.  What is it, like a half million areas of forest?

“Biggest forest in the state.  What’s your friend’s name?”

“Sandberg, Detective Ed Sandberg, but don’t you start calling him.  I’ll let you know if we find anything.”  He disconnected. 

As I pulled out of the Art House parking lot, I looked in my rearview mirror and could make out the silhouette of someone standing in the window looking at my Jeep.  Beyond the OPEN sign, flickering neon with a burned out O, beyond the words on the window, I could see the look on Inkman’s face.  It was an anxious posture, cell phone pressed to his ear, the red dot of a cigarette bouncing from his lips.  Nick’s voice played in my head.  “I told you how shit happens, remember?”