Turtle Island (39 page)

‘Looks like we're into the end game.’ Frusco said, his words
as chilling as the breeze around them. Georgina looked at her
watch.

‘But it's only four o'clock.’

‘Yeah, four o'clock Eastern time.’ Leroy interjected, his
voice struggling to be heard over the blades. ‘But right now it’s
eight in California.’

The scream from the rotor blades suddenly died as the pilot
cut the engine.

‘No, he's got her close by.’ Georgina said, adjusting the
level of her own voice to the more tranquil silence that was
befalling Turtle Island.

Barbara Dace and John Keller joined the detectives at the
front of the copter. Keller had his lightweight camera hoisted on
to his shoulder and was filming.

‘I can feel it in my bones…he's close by.’ Georgina shivered.
‘So where's the body?’

‘A little down this way, back to the river.’ Frusco began to
lead them down the slope to the river's edge, where were greeted by
two familiar figures, Ned Freeman and Nemo his dog, both of them
waiting patiently. The Ingénue was moored, tied and staked to the
embankment. A team of divers were in the river, which was running
like a torrent, struggling with ropes trying to attach them to the
foot of the body. Rain continued to pepper the surface of the water
like a million bullets ripping through the black surging, gushing
stream.

‘I don't get it, we searched every house around here.’ Leroy
said puzzled

‘Yeah, every house until we found Fleisher, then we gave up.’
Georgina answered with bitterness in her voice, the realisation of
not following up all the clues to the case now painfully bitter in
her mouth. She had panicked and allowed herself in-turn to be
panicked by the escalating situation in the case. Inexperience
which she knew was going to come back to haunt her when the case
finally wrapped. It was rare for such a monumental degree of
mistakes to be overlooked by her superiors, and as she headed down
the hill her fears were confirmed.

The assistant director of the FBI's child crimes unit was
half-hidden behind a large black umbrella, which he carried to
shield himself from the increasing volumes of rain falling from the
sky. She recognised his stance in a moment. The way he carried
himself, the way his body moved, albeit half hidden. Georgina
thought it was impossible to feel sicker than she already did but
like so many times in the past, she was proved to be wrong. Her
stomach turned once more.

‘Agent O’Neil.’ The man looked out from under the umbrella.
His steel grey hair and cold blue eyes added the correct amount of
solemnity that his position carried. His skin was fair though
slightly tanned, wearing the expression of a man at ease with
himself. Georgina could feel her eyes welling up and she had to
fight extremely hard to control her emotion.

‘Father.’

Assistant director, Wynan O’Neil, frowned, the familiarity he
wanted in his private life was out of place in the field. Work was
no place for family domesticities as far as he was concerned,
especially in the territory in which they found themselves. This
was a place for professionals, nothing less. Georgina wanted to hug
her father, but the man standing in front of her wasn't her father.
Her father would be the man who would later visit her motel room
and try to explain as gently as he could that she was to be the
subject of an investigation by the FBI, regarding her conduct
during the case. He would be the man who would at first comfort her
and then support her. Support her anger and her rage, before
channelling it into a strategy that she could use as defence. But
now he just looked at her with those cold blue eyes. ‘Agent O’Neil,
it appears we have another body.’

Georgina wiped rain from her face, pushing her matted hair
back from her eyes.

Leroy regarded the confrontation between the two as odd and
sensed a feeling of discomfort displayed by both.

Norman Frusco barged past the small group, determined to get
on with the business at hand, letting time or the lack of it be his
only hindrance. Wynan O’Neil turned, following the captain and
black detective, leaving his daughter momentarily standing alone in
the rain.

He plunged his hand into the cold water and rolled the body
over, so that the white staring eyes bore into his. Wynan O’Neil
looked at the skin, which was once brown but now had a bluish-grey
hue to it. The flesh was puffy, split in places; raw open wounds
gaped perversely, almost pornographically at him. Assistant
director O’Neil stepped back to allow two policemen with boat hooks
to pull the naked body from the water. He watched a small Jack
Russell bound about in the rain, barking excitedly, while his owner
(he assumed) sat silently against the side of his boat peeling an
orange. Leroy walked toward the body, now extracted from the water
and laid on the muddy riverbank, his emotions a turmoil of
apprehension and anxiety. He felt Georgina's hand slip into his as
they approached the corpse. The rain had not let up and the day was
turning to hell on earth as time ticked away. With all the breaks,
all the leads they had been given over the past twenty-four hours
they were still no closer to finding the culprit. From a discreet
distance, John Keller, focused on the detectives faces, hoping to
capture the anguish and emotion. Barbara Dace recorded a monologue
for a voice over. Her years of professionalism exercised to the
full, as she fought with her memory and vocabulary to construct a
piece of journalism 'on the fly'.

Georgina squeezed Leroy's hand as the body was laid before
them on the rain sodden, muddy bank.

‘Is it Rick?’ Georgina asked.

A canvas cloth had been placed over the dead man's face by the
police divers. There was something bizarre about the need to do
such a thing, maybe it was a gesture of respect for the dead but
what dignity could be afforded a naked corpse whose body was
swollen with water absorption and half eaten by rats, crocodiles
and other wildlife; certainly not enough from an oil stained rag.
Norman Frusco joined the detectives as Leroy crouched down on his
haunches and gently lifted the veil. The staring white eyes bulged
in their sockets, swollen with body gases, water, infection, mites
and maggots that crawled beneath the skin feeding on what
sustenance they could find. Their movement animated the features of
the corpse into something even more grotesque. Leroy ran, slipping
and sliding from the body to the water’s edge, he wanted to be
sick. His stomach turned and threatened to expel its contents but
by breathing deeply and slowly Leroy managed to retain control.
Georgina replaced the cloth.

Leroy shouted through the barrage of increasing rain but his
voice was almost lost against the cacophony, though neither
Georgina, nor Norman Frusco needed Leroy identification to know who
the victim was.

‘WILL…WILL.’ Jo-Lynn screamed. Pushing open doors as she
passed room after room. There was a television in each room, most
of them seemed to be tuned into children’s networks or linked to
the Internet, not that she had much time to linger, taking in
details. Her priority was singular, to get her son and only then to
get out alive. Nothing else mattered. She knew he was not far
behind and that he had the advantage of knowing the territory. She
opened the fifth door along the long narrow hall and called once
more.

‘WILL.’

Silence.

Jo-Lynn turned, suddenly aware that she was alone. There was
no chasing monster, no pursuing demon. Where had he
gone?

‘Maybe…’ she consoled herself, ‘…maybe he's dead or dying.’
She knew she had embedded the jagged implement deep into his
throat, it could have pierced his windpipe or an artery; it was not
inconceivable. Just as she was about to turn and try the last door,
a voice whispered.

‘Mummy?’ It sounded unsure.

From the recess of the darkened room the small figure of a
child stepped forward. The boy squinted against the harsher light
from the corridor and put his hand to his eyes to shield them so he
could gain a better view.

‘He told me you had left me.’ The boy began to sob ‘He told me
you had gone away forever.’

Jo-Lynn held her arms out to welcome her son in a loving
embrace, an embrace that she so desperately needed. As she held her
son, Jo-Lynn saw Ray’s eyes widen and knew, somehow could sense,
the silent presence behind her even before she heard the rasping
gargled breathing. Cold fear ate deep into her bones threatening to
immobilise her.

He laid the ski mask on her left shoulder.

‘Poor son of a bitch.’ Wynan O’Neil sheltered beneath the dry
haven of the umbrella.

‘Don’t feel too sorry for him.’ Georgina was crouching over
the body, rain bounced off both her and the lifeless, uncaring face
of the corpse. ‘A more fitting end I couldn’t have wished
for.’

‘Jonathan Marland Kiers, ex partner of Charles Fleisher,
pederast, abuser of women, drug taker, all round nasty fuck.’ Leroy
filled the senior FBI agent in on some of the corpse’s finer
personality disorders.

‘And not our man. Kiers has been dead for days, maybe even
weeks. Gentlemen, I don’t want to rain on this parade but we have a
little over two and a half hours before our man completes his
agenda.’ Norman Frusco was already walking back to the helicopter
as he spoke.

‘Yeah, but where do we go from here?’ Leroy asked no one in
general. Georgina joined him by his side.

‘This is a nightmare, Leroy.’ Georgina shivered, as the rain
grew steadily harder; making contact through her clothes to her
skin, adding to her misery. She watched her father walk away,
leaving the body to be zipped in a PVC body bag.

Two boiler suited men struggled with the dead weight on the
slippery surface as they carried John Kiers to the back of the
coroner’s van.

‘Can there really be a hell bad enough for someone like
him?’

‘At the moment, in the scheme of things, John Kiers is not
even the bad guy.’ Leroy answered.

Barbara Dace slid down the small incline toward the
detectives. She had urgency about her approach, which was
immediately apparent. She was calling to the detectives, beckoning
them to her.

‘Andy’s gone.’ She said breathlessly as she drew nearer.
‘Andy’s gone…and there’s a fire in the editing suite.’ The words
came in hurried, excited bursts. ‘All the tapes, everything…whoosh,
up in flames.’

The three of them broke into a sprint running toward the
waiting helicopter; Frusco and Wynan O’Neil were already on board.
Wynan O’Neil still immaculate, cool and dry, Frusco, wet, agitated
and determined. By the time Leroy, Dace and Georgina got to the
machine the rotors were spinning, sending freezing air down on
their wet clothes.

‘It’s gonna be cramped.’ Barbara said, as she entered the tiny
confine. ‘Bunch up tight.’

Norman Frusco moved in closer to Wynan O’Neil allowing Barbara
to sit next to him. Leroy, Georgina and John Keller occupied the
other row of seats. The rain continued to lash down making
visibility even worse than before, but the helicopter rose from the
ground without hesitation, swooping low over the fields, passing
the blocked roads, which were finally starting to move. Georgina
looked over Keller’s shoulder at the scene below. The jack-knifed
lorry was being hauled to one side as cars were starting to filter
around the gap. The large blue screening was erect with a row of
five tarpaulin-covered bodies lying behind it, awaiting carriage to
the hospital morgue. Georgina’s cell phone rang; the shrill making
everyone’s hearts beat a little faster. The pilot called from over
his shoulder. ‘You’ll have to turn that off.’

Georgina opened the phone and answered. ‘Yes?’

‘I said you’ll have to turn that off, Miss. It interferes with
the instrumentation panel.’

The pilot reiterated, with little patience.

It was Harley Fleisher. ‘I have found something, I think you
should know.’

The helicopter lurched.

‘TURN IT OFF, NOW!’ The pilot demanded.

‘Put me down then.’ Georgina shouted.

‘What?’

‘Land this helicopter. I don’t care where, just land
it.’

Puzzled faces looked at Georgina as she continued to listen to
her caller. She spoke into the handset. ‘Hang on. Call me in a
minute.’

The connection fuzzed and cracked, cutting out. Georgina
couldn’t be sure whether she had been heard. She gestured to the
pilot to hurry up and land.

The helicopter began a quick decent, heading for the middle of
a rain soaked field. Water glistened in huge puddles. The fear of
getting bogged in, made the pilot hover some three feet above the
muddy earth.

‘You’ll have to jump.’ He shouted.

Georgina looked at the distance and the ground below, at least
it would be soft she consoled herself.

‘Wait here.’ She unbuckled herself and leapt out of the open
door. Georgina landed on all fours; telephone clutched in her muddy
hand and immediately ran away from the copter to a quieter location
where she could safely take the call. The giant helicopter roared
away and sat motionless in mid-air, suspended in its own powerful
stasis. Georgina turned from the wind, which carried with it the
relentless rain and placed her finger in her free ear so she could
hear the conversation better. Georgina listened.