by Tom Lowe
“What do you mean?”
Wynona leaned back in the bench, her eyes searching my face. “I’m not sure what I mean, and that’s part of the frustration.” She exhaled.
“You don’t have to return if you don’t want to. When I said our dock, I meant it. What’s mine is yours. Everything here I share with you for as long as you want to stay. With you, it’s not the length of time … it’s the depth of the time we have together. I cherish every moment.”
Wynona blinked back tears, bit her full bottom lip, taking a deep breath. “I love you, Sean.”
“And I love you.” A hummingbird, iridescent body like polished jade, a scarf of red feathers around its throat, flew out of a weeping willow tree, the bird flying stationary less than ten feet from us. Max tilted her head, watching. The little bird flew toward purple and white trumpet flowers on the riverbank.
Wynona smiled. “I so love hummingbirds. Just like that manatee, they have no fear of us. When I was a little girl, the elder Seminoles said hummingbirds could fly through time to places humans could never go, unless they could understand what the hummingbird seeks.” She paused, looked at the trumpet flowers, the hummingbird sipping nectar from the heart of them, and then vanishing into the forest. Wynona cut her eyes over to me. “Now, I believe I know what the elders meant.” She smiled, leaned in and kissed me. Max rested her chin on Wynona’s leg.
After half a minute, I said, “We can go seek something together and use the wind to get us there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dragonfly. She doesn’t have wings, but she has some great sails. I’ve been thinking about repositioning her from Ponce Marina down to the islands … maybe dock in St. Lucia and leave her there.”
“Leave Dragonfly in St. Lucia … why?”
“To give us an excuse and reason to fly back down to the islands to go sailing.”
Wynona smiled. “That sounds like a good plan. I could use a sailing trip with you and little Max. I think it’ll be the perfect antidote for feeling guilty about not remaining as a contributing member of society.”
• • •
There were two parts of his job that detective Dan Grant disliked. One was having to inform people that a member of their family was the victim of a homicide. The other was to spend time with the medical examiner while he looked for the cause of death. Grant didn’t always visit the morgue autopsy room, but he wanted to be there before the victim’s family arrived. And he wanted to hear what the medical examiner had to say about the cause of death as soon as it could be determined, unless they had to wait for the results of the toxicology reports.
Grant stood in one corner of the morgue as Doctor Clifford Baird performed the autopsy on the girl’s body. He believed the dead girl was Michelle Martin. Her face resembled the pictures on the missing person’s flier her parents had printed and distributed around the county.
The girl’s image, a golden-brown haired beauty with an engaging smile, was plastered on storefront windows in strip shopping centers, truck stops, restaurants, near apartment complexes, and on utility poles. Michelle’s parents reported her missing three days before the body was found. They were coming to the county morgue to identify a body that Grant knew would be their daughter. He’d delivered the preliminary bad news that morning, the mother—a petite woman, almost collapsing in the doorway to their home, sobbing, her husband holding her, both with tears welling in reddened and terrified eyes.
Grant watched Doctor Baird and his female assistant, a woman in her early thirties, dark hair pulled back, face unreadable as they methodically took blood and tissue samples, both wearing waterproof aprons, clear plastic masks and rubber gloves up to their elbows. Baird, a lanky man in his mid-fifties, neatly trimmed silver beard, spoke into a wireless microphone, recording the autopsy in the dry tone of a pathologist examining skin tissue through a microscope, mumbling his findings in a monotone voice.
He looked over at Grant. “Detective, we’ll snap a photo of the face for you to show the girl’s family when they get here. I’ve never been one to pull the sheet down for a visual ID. That always seemed overly harsh and calloused.”
Grant nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”
“No problem.”
“Have you found anything that can tell us the cause of death?”
“No, not yet. When I go through the sternum to examine the lungs, the first thing we’ll be looking for is water in her lungs. In the meantime, we did find something bizarre.”
“What is it?”
“We’re not sure.” Baird eyed his assistant.
She looked at Grant and lifted her face mask up. “It was in her vagina. At first I thought it was tiny pieces of latex from a condom. But now, I believe it’s something else. We’ll know after we look under the microscope. Give us a little time.”
TEN
DeLand, Florida, is immune to a sickness that chokes large cities twice a day—in the morning and late afternoon. Rush hour. It was during the afternoon when I drove into DeLand to buy groceries. The town is about twenty miles from my cabin on the St. Johns River. Wynona and Max were back at the cabin, planting flowers. DeLand has the quintessential feel of a Norman Rockwell painting. Each block appears as vibrant as a grandmother’s quilt, patches of color, lovingly stitched in time. There are quaint coffee shops and bakeries. The bookstores come with creaky wooden floors, overstuffed chairs, and the scent of antiquity on pages of old books, the smell of time trapped between the lines of the pages.
I drove past sidewalk cafes with blue and yellow umbrellas over wrought iron tables, past large concrete planters filled with red and white petunias, and past a large nineteenth century mural on the side of a building. The mural depicted the townspeople in formal dress, men in three-piece suits, hats. Children playing stick ball. Women in long dresses, wide sunhats. Moss-draped live oaks. There was a horse and buggy, stagecoach, and a coal-fired train locomotive all in the same painting. It was as if the artist painted the crossroads of time and transportation in DeLand.
I stopped at a traffic light, watching a woman hold the hand of a small boy as they crossed the street, a view of the clock bell tower at the top of the old courthouse. 4:40 p.m. When the light turned green and I drove through the intersection, something caught my eye. It was a sign on a building that was for sale. At least the business was for sale, an antique store. The structure itself had the veneer of a building constructed in the late 1800s. Faded red brick, white shutters, a green awning, and two large wicker rocking chairs on either side of the front door near a bronze bell almost as large as the Liberty Bell.
An elderly man, snow white hair, western shirt buttoned to his turkey neck, sat in one chair, gnarled hands interlocked on his lap, eyes closed like a Florida lizard in the warm afternoon sunlight. He appeared to be waiting for someone, perhaps his wife, to come out of the shop. I memorized the number on the sign. Wynona has a passion for antiques. A few weeks ago, she mentioned that she’d like to own an antique store one day. Maybe now, or sometime soon, could be that day.
I remembered a time not long ago when we were in Mt. Dora, another small Central Florida town, browsing an antique store. It was dimly lit, a hodgepodge of monuments to time and American history. Wynona loved the feel of solid wood furniture. She ran her hand over the baroque and intricate carvings along the sides of a cabinet, holding figurines of cherubic faces—angels.
She looked at me and said, “I can feel the woodcarver’s passion, his emotions as he made this piece more than 130 years ago. What’s unique about antiques like this is they outlive their creators and the first to care for them, and yet they live in the homes and hearts of new keepers, not owners because classic antiquity is meant to be borrowed and then passed on to the next memory keeper of the historic flame.”
As I drove on through town, I was thinking about what she said—her passion for antiques, and how owning an antique store might provide Wynona with a new sense of purpose. It would be her call, her option. I wanted to bri
ng her into DeLand, let her walk back in time through the shop, and maybe walk into the future with her renewed hopes and dreams.
A shrill sound interrupted my thoughts.
I picked up my phone, looked at the screen. An Amber Alert. A child, a young girl, had been abducted. The suspect was believed to be driving an older model blue Chevy Malibu. And the abduction happened as the child was waiting for her mother to pick her up after a soccer game near her middle school. I hoped it might be a case of parental custody dispute, and the child’s life was not in danger.
I drove on toward the grocery story, a Publix, on the southside of DeLand. As I waited at the intersection of Woodland Boulevard and Deerfoot Road, I spotted a blue Chevy Malibu. It looked to be at least a decade old, some of the paint on the trunk pitted, as if the car had been parked for years under pine trees. I saw a middle-aged man driving, and in the passenger seat, the head of a child, a blonde girl, just visible.
With no hesitation, I followed. I kept a good distance away, two other cars between my Jeep and the Chevy. The driver headed west on Deerfoot, after a couple of miles, turning north, driving by Lake Beresford, one of the lakes on the St. Johns River. The other two cars turned off, and now it was only my Jeep. I stayed as far behind as possible, never letting the Malibu out of my sight, watching for brake lights.
The driver passed Lake Beresford Park, going about a mile north and then making a quick turn to the left, heading west toward the river. I knew the area. Knew that the road he took was dirt and sand, not quite wide enough for two cars to pass. An old cemetery was at the end. No place much to turn left or right because the area was so wooded. Lots of live oaks, cypress, wetlands, and swamps bordering the river. The road was the highest ground.
I knew it would lead to an area no larger than an acre, still heavily wooded. Remote. Primitive. And very isolated. This was not a place a normal father would ever take his daughter in the case of a custody battle, unless he planned to kill her. And I didn’t think that was the situation here. I believed it was the horrible reality of a pedophile, a man trolling the playground, ballfields, and side streets near elementary and middle schools, looking for prey. They were always looking for prey.
I also knew if he got to the river’s edge, had his heinous and sickening way with her, he’d dump the girl into a river filled with alligators, and the body would never be found. He’d immediately leave, and the girl would become another statistic in the mountain of missing child cases.
I slowed my Jeep at the entrance to the dirt road. Before turning in, I looked to make sure his car was not visible. Now, for him to leave, he had nowhere to go except to meet me as I entered. But I wasn’t going to give him time to exit on his own accord. At this point, it would be his choice, to exit in handcuffs in the back of a sheriff’s car or a body bag.
I really didn’t care.
In these cases, time is crucial. The cardinal rule is you do something about it as soon as you see it, or there may not be a second chance at life for the kidnapped victim. I made a call to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department. The dispatcher said, “9-1-1 … what is your emergency?”
“I’m following up on an Amber Alert. A twelve-year-old girl was abducted. I believe the perp just turned down a remote road, the first road going north, to the left past Beresford Park. There’s an old cemetery down there, by the river.”
“Do you have an address, sir?”
“No, I have an emergency. It shouldn’t be hard to find the first dirt road to the left past Beresford Park.”
“What is your name, sir?”
“Sean O’Brien. I used to work for Miami-Dade PD. Now, I’m a PI. And I’m going in there before he can hurt her. Just wanted to let you guys know. You might want to send in the troops.”
“Sir, you cannot follow a vehicle involved in an Amber Alert. It could put you in a dangerous situation and—”
“The child is the one in the dangerous situation, and she’s running out of time.” I disconnected, anger building. Then I turned down the dirt road bordered by slash pines, thick brush, and a partial tunnel from interlocked branches, canopies of tall live oaks, hanging moss not moving in the still air. I opened my Jeep’s console, reaching for my Glock, wondering if I’d be forced to use it.
ELEVEN
The sand and dirt road snaked through the underbrush for a little more than a half mile before coming to an opening, land dotted with a dozen visible old graves between palmetto bushes and sable palms. All of the headstones were leaning, most the color of dark, tarnished silver, worn down by time and weather. The rounded shoulders of the gravestones were speckled with moss and green lichen. I could see a wink of late afternoon sunlight reflecting off the Chevy parked close to the river. And I could hear the cries of the girl. I parked behind a wide clump of palmettos, Glock extended, running as silently as possible toward the car.
The man hadn’t seen me yet. He was big. Maybe as tall as me, at least six-two, wide chest, thick neck. Salt and pepper whiskers. He walked quickly around the car and opened the passenger door, pulling out the girl. “No!” she screamed. “Let me go!”
“You’re a little fighter. I like little fighters. I like the squirming as I do you.”
I approached, only two tall sable palms between me and the perp. His back was turned to me. “Let her go!” I shouted, my Glock now leveled at him.
He grabbed the girl, turning around, using her as a partial shield, pulling a small pistol from his pocket, pushing against her head. I smiled, “What’s your name?”
“Kiss my ass!”
“Right now, it’s only a kidnapping. It’s up to you whether it goes any further.”
“You her daddy?”
“No, I’m her crazy uncle. The one they hope doesn’t come to Thanksgiving dinner. I was never the same when they put the metal plate in my skull after my last tour of duty.”
The man flashed a mocking grin, shaking his head. The girl, tears rolling down her face, stared at me with hope and disbelief at the same time. I said, “This is the last time. Let her go and put the gun away. Sheriff’s deputies will be here very soon. We can end this peacefully and all walk out alive.” I could see his white knuckles, thick finger at the trigger, urine running down the child’s left leg.
He shouted, “You leave, or I scatter her brains. I’m not goin’ back to prison.”
“Oh, been there and done that, have you? Probably for what you’re trying to do today, no doubt.” I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. “Right now, it’s just you and me. In a few minutes, this place will be crawling with sheriff’s deputies. Unless you want to commit suicide by cop, let the girl go. Get yourself a good lawyer and see if you can get mental help.” I stepped closer, estimating time and space to get off a round that wouldn’t hit the child.
“Far enough!” he shouted. “I’m getting back in my car and driving outta here with the girl. As long as I got the little bitch, I got a chance.”
“No, you had a chance. Now it’s gone.”
“You wouldn’t dare shoot me with the kid here.”
“I’ve always loved a dare.”
He started to say something as I squeezed the trigger, the round striking him in the left collarbone. He fell backwards. I rushed the guy. “Run!” I ordered he girl, my eyes indicating which way. She ran to the far side of his car. I was on him before he could lift and aim his pistol, using my right fist to hit him hard on the lower jaw. His eyes rolled up, head back. Out cold. I removed his gun and walked over to the girl. I leaned down to her level. “He won’t hurt you.”
“Is he dead?” she asked though streaming tears.
“No honey, he’s alive. He’ll be going back to jail where he belongs. Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Janie Shepard.”
“Come here, Janie.” I stretched out my arms. She ran to me, and I picked her up in an embrace, her tears soaking into my T-shirt. I patted her back as she sobbed
, a parade of sheriff’s cars, blue and white lights flashing, made a semi-circle around us. A half-dozen deputies approached, all wearing bullet-proof vests, weapons extended. Three deputies stood next to their parked cars, doors open, high-powered rifles pointed at me.
I said, “The perp is on the other side of the car.”
“Did you shoot him?” asked a tall deputy.
“He was holding a pistol to her head. It’s a non-lethal wound to his shoulder, the collarbone, to be specific.”
“He looks dead,” said another deputy.
“That’s because I knocked him out. He’s resting peacefully. Sort of.”
“Who the hell are you?” asked the chief deputy.
“As I said on the 9-1-1 call, name’s Sean O’Brien. And this little lady is Janie Shepard. She has quite a story to tell you.” I set her down, knowing I’d be here for a while, thinking about Wynona and Max in the yard, planting flowers. It’s odd moments like this when I ponder how life can have a serendipitous turn, if you’re lucky. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Had I been three blocks farther away from the blue Chevy when I saw the Amber Alert, the child would probably be dead and in the river by now.
I leaned up against my Jeep as two female deputies approached Janie, both women smiling and using their maternal instincts along with their training to console the child. They walked her back to a car, the sound of police radios crackling, the call of a hawk flying over the dark river, the odor of old graves, damp moss and pinesap in the air.
I watched the deputies arouse the man on the ground. They got him to his feet, his eyes vacant and disbelieving as he looked toward me, blinking. They handcuffed him, read the perp his rights, two deputies walking him to a squad car. And then the chief deputy and a detective in a dark brown sports coat started questioning me.
