by Lowe, Tom
Kim said, “Maybe the call I received from the woman will help. Sean, she wants to speak with you. She keeps seeing your picture on the news, those images the news media shot of you and Nick that day in the marina parking lot. Anyway, she said if you’re the missing girl’s father, she wanted to talk with you because she feels very concerned for the girl’s safety. She told me that she gave Courtney Burke a ride when she found her walking on a road through the Ocala National Forest. Said she took her into DeLand and dropped her off at a medical clinic.”
Dave asked, “What’s the woman’s name?”
I caught the flash just over Dave’s shoulder. From a rooftop. “Kim! Don’t say anymore.” The flash was a wink of the sun off moving glass from the roof of a boat storage warehouse one hundred yards across the marina. I could see a man crouched beside an air-conditioning unit on the roof. He was holding a pair of binoculars trained my way.
“What do you see?” Dave asked, not turning in the direction I had just looked.
“Everyone act normal. No turning around and looking. One man, visible. Eleven o’clock position over your right shoulder, Dave. Top of Johnson’s warehouse.”
Nick picked up Max, and cut his eyes toward the building without moving his body or head in the direction. Kim looked at me, I could hear her make a dry swallow, arms folding across her breasts.
“Dave, have you or Nick seen anyone approach Jupiter?”
Nick said, “I haven’t seen much of anything lately.”
Dave grunted, “Nothing out of the norm. I haven’t observed anyone physically board your boat. I would have stopped them. A marine surveyor was crawling all over the Hatteras in the slip next to yours. Looks like that boat’s on the market now.”
I turned to Kim. “Let’s go inside and talk.”
55
Kim and I took Max inside Jupiter. Dave and Nick stayed back, walking covertly in the direction of the Johnson Boatworks building. Max jumped up on my couch in the boat’s salon and curled into a ball.
Kim said, “This is a lot roomier inside than what it appears outside.”
“I’ll show you around in a minute. First, who is this woman and how can I reach her?”
Kim sat on the couch next to Max and petted her. I found a piece of paper and a pen, and handed them to Kim. “What’s this for?”
“Write down her name.”
Kim’s eyes opened wider. “Okay.” She wrote out the name and handed the paper to me. Lois Timbers. Kim said, “She’s a school teacher in DeLand, and called from the school during her break. She said after dropping Courtney off at a clinic, she never saw her again until all of this news coverage began. She told me that Courtney asked to borrow her cell phone, and she made a call to someone. She didn’t hear any part of the conversation because Courtney stepped out of the car to make the call.”
“Did this woman give you the number Courtney called?”
“No, there was a real hesitancy in her voice when she was talking to me. She definitely wanted to speak with you … or Andrea Logan.”
“Andrea Logan?”
“Yes. She said if Andrea is the girl’s mother, then she ought to know her daughter needs help.”
“I hope she hasn’t called the Logan campaign office. Write down her number?”
Kim reached in her purse and took out a small piece of lavender paper. “I already did that. It’s on here.”
I looked at the number and then reached for one of the disposable phones I’d bought. “Kim, make yourself at home. I’m going to step out on the cockpit to call.”
She nodded and said, “I understand.”
Lois Timbers answered her phone on the third ring. I identified myself and said, “I really appreciate you reaching out to me. Was there anything in the conversation that stood out to you, something I should know?”
“Yes, the girl said her mother is dead. Said she was raised by her grandmother. And I believe it was her grandmother who she called.”
“Lois, you’ve been very helpful. I don’t know if Courtney is my daughter. It’s urgent that I find out. For Courtney’s safety, it’s very important that everything we talked about stays between us.”
“I understand.”
“Please don’t call Senator Logan’s campaign office and leave a message for his wife, Andrea. There’s no sense in stirring the pot any more than it’s been stirred already. I’d rather give Andrea the news, one way or the other, when we know something definitive.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Mr. O’Brien, I have the number on my phone that Courtney called that morning. Can I give it to you?”
“Yes, but not over the phone. I’m near Daytona right now. I can drive to DeLand to meet you. There’s a coffee shop on New York Avenue. It’s called the Boston Coffeehouse. Do you know of the place?”
“Yes.”
“Can you meet me there in one hour?”
“I can be there. I’ll certainly recognize you, Mr. O’Brien. I’ll be wearing jeans and a yellow T-shirt with words across the front of it that read: World’s Greatest Grandma. Goodbye.”
She disconnected and I stepped back inside Jupiter to tell Kim that I was leaving. She was no longer sitting on the couch. “In here,” she said, her voice coming from the galley.
I walked down three steps to the galley where Kim had a spray bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels, cleaning the counter. I said, “Sorry about any dirt. My housecleaning duties have been more than lax these last few days.”
She looked up and smiled, the sun coming through a porthole window and breaking across her face and hair. “No problem. Nick and Dave can help you with some of the more physical stuff. Me, well, I can roll my sleeves up to give you a hand on your boat. I’m not a neat freak, just a gal who’s organized and can shine this sweet old boat ‘til she’s gleaming. It’s the least I can do, Sean, while you sort all this stuff out.”
“Thank you.”
“Besides, maybe one day you’ll take me out on Jupiter. I’ve never been seasick and I love boats. Funny thing is that although I work in a marina restaurant, hundreds of boats right out the door, I’m land-bound.”
“Not anymore. We’ll go for a boat ride when this is over.”
“I’d like that.”
“I have to drive to DeLand now. I’m meeting our school teacher friend and getting a number from her.”
A text arrived on my regular phone. It was from Dave: We’re heading back. Suspect fled before we could get there.
***
Within a few minutes. Dave and Nick walked down L-dock. Kim, Max, and I stood next to Dave’s trawler, Gibraltar, waiting for them. They approached and Dave said, “He either spotted us, or he left the rooftop when you and Kim weren’t visible. No one saw this guy. And Boatworks doesn’t have security cameras yet. They’re on order.”
Nick said, “He probably saw us walking down the dock and flew the coop before we could get to the parking lot.”
I glanced back at the rooftop, now vacant. “These guys keep following me on the perimeter, always in my space from a distance. I’m being tracked. It’s time I become the tracker. I’m assuming my main mobile number is bugged. Don’t text or call me on my regular phone with any information you don’t want others to know. I’m using throw-away phones until I can pick up a new, clean one. I’ll remove the sim card and battery when I drive to DeLand.” I told them about my short conversation with Lois Timbers and added, “I don’t want Logan’s people finding this school teacher and hunting down the person on the other end of the line, the recipient of Courtney’s call.”
Dave squinted his eyes in the sun reflecting off the water. He said, “Since our second-term president has endorsed Senator Logan, I suspect Logan has at least some of the vast resources of the NSA at his disposal. And that means that anything you do electronically, Sean, is indeed traceable. They want desperately to find Courtney Burke.”
“Not more than I do.” I squat
ted down and petted Max. “I have to make a short trip. You hang with Dave and Nick. I’ll be back soon.” I stood and caught Kim looking up at me in a way I’d never seen her look before, her eyes restless, her face filled with quiet thoughts, almost as if I was a sailor on shore leave and departing her port town for a long journey. She gripped her arms, the breeze across the water moving her hair.
Dave said, “Maybe this number you get from Miss Timbers will lead you straight to Courtney Burke.”
“I’ll know soon.”
As I turned to walk away, Kim said, “Be careful, Sean. I have a bad feeling in my heart.”
56
When Courtney Burke pushed open the wrought iron gate, it made a groaning sound, and the sun went behind a dark cloud, the light sucked out of the air, shadows escaped. Ivy clung to the face of the aged brick in the archway entrance. She walked inside and followed a slate path bordered by bougainvillea dipping in purple blooms. The sound of her shoes against the stone mixed with the throb of bees in the flowers. A blackbird perched on a low-hanging branch of a mimosa tree and cocked its head, one yellow eye watching Courtney walk down the path.
She entered a small courtyard surrounded by bamboo and banana trees, the smell of hibiscus in the motionless air. A wrought iron table with two chairs was positioned in deep shade near the foliage. In the center of the enclosure was a three-tiered fountain with a winged angel perched at the top, water bubbling from its open mouth and cascading down the discolored concrete layers of the fountain.
An antique two-story brick building with vaulted doors and windows, black shutters, and ivy creeping up to the second floor, stood in the speckled light like a leftover from a bygone chapter in New Orleans. The faded brass numbers tacked over the door read: 41. And above the address was a hand-painted sign: House of Cards – Voodoo. A small blue neon sign in the lower part of one window glowed with a single word: Readings.
Courtney walked through the open door. The smell of burning incense greeted her at the threshold. She stepped inside the small shop lit by candles and dimmed lights attached to the base of a slow turning paddle fan hanging from a ceiling painted black. The walls were lined with shelves that displayed hand-labeled bottles, carved bone jewelry, peacock feathers, crystals, voodoo dolls, plastic skulls, beads, imitation shrunken heads, African masks, a freeze-dried tarantula, tarot cards, and dozens of charms, statues and potions.
A curtain of multi-colored beads hang from an arched doorway in the rear of the store. Next to it a red candle burned from a two-inch sized hole drilled through the top of a skull, hot wax dripping into the vacant eye sockets.
A large black cat came in the shop from outside. Courtney turned around when the cat jumped up onto a frayed chair in one corner next to a small table with a blue tablecloth spread across it, fragments of bones on the tablecloth.
“Welcome.”
Courtney spun back around as a woman walked through the curtain of beads hanging from the rear doorway. She was a head shorter that Courtney, dressed in African attire, face furrowed and the color of dark tea. She wore a mauve bandana covering her hair, a single gold hoop earring in her left ear, and a green-print dress resembling a robe. “Welcome to our little corner of the universe. Can I help you find something?” The old woman’s eyes explored Courtney’s face. Her voice had a Cajun dialect with a Caribbean inflection, and she spoke just above a whisper.
Courtney smiled. “I’m really not here to buy anything.”
“You are here for a reading then. I can tell. My name is Mambo Eve. You have many troubles on your mind, baby. Your eyes are not like any I’ve looked into before. They are captivating and powerful, but deeply troubled.”
“I guess it doesn’t take much of a reading to see that. I feel like I’m wearing my emotions outside my clothes.” Courtney smiled.
Mambo Eve nodded. “I sense something else about you. You have a gift as well. Are you a witch?”
Courtney’s eyebrows rose, and she smiled. “A witch? Oh, no. I’m not a witch, but I’m not an angel either. I’m here because I’m looking for someone.”
“Someone or something?”
“Both, really. I was told that Mariah Danford was at this address. Does she work here?”
“Yes. I couldn’t do it without her. Readings, at least for me, require so much energy. At my age, they’re becoming more tiring. Mariah manages the front of the shop for me.” Mambo Eve angled her head, looking to the right of Courtney, through the open door. “She’s back from lunch.”
A woman, mid-forties, entered and removed her sunglasses. She was tall and thin, face narrow, dark wavy hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore no makeup. Her white blouse clung loosely below her long neck, revealing a sprinkling of freckles on her shoulders. “Hello,” she said, dropping her straw purse behind a counter with an old cash register in the center. “You looking for anything in particular?”
“Are you Mariah Danford?”
“Who wants to know?”
57
Three college-aged girls, all wearing Mardi Gras beads and bright sundresses, entered the shop, laughing, one girl ending a story about her ex-boyfriend. She pushed dark glasses up to the top of her head and asked, “Ya’ll sell voodoo dolls and the pins that come with it?” She cackled. “I want to give a gift that he can feel.”
Mariah smiled and pointed to the back of the store. “We have a large selection on the shelf below the skulls.” The girls stepped to the rear of the store, snickering and pointing to a large bottle with a label that read: LOVE POTION #9.
Mariah turned back to Courtney. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Courtney, and my friend Boots Langley told me to come see you.”
“How’s Boots?”
“Not so good. You don’t know?”
“Know what? Is Boots okay? Has he been hurt?”
“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this … he was killed.”
Mariah steadied herself by bracing one hand against the counter. She glanced down at the black cat dozing on the seat of the chair, her eyes searching the room. She turned to the old woman and said, “This is horrible. I’d like to speak with this girl outside.”
Mamba Eve lowered her eyes and nodded. “Of course. Take your time.”
Courtney and Mariah took seats at the wrought iron table in the courtyard. Mariah leaned in, resting her arms on the top of the table. “You bring me awful news. What happened?”
Courtney told all she knew and how she found the body. Then she added, “Boots thought that you could help me find Dillon Flanagan.”
“Who?”
“God knows what he goes by now. That’s the name he was born with, and he’s my uncle. Boots said you might know him as the Prophet.”
The color drained from Mariah’s face. She pushed away from the table and leaned back in her chair, her mouth slightly parted, her thoughts far from the courtyard. There was only the sound of the water splashing in the fountain and a hummingbird darting between hibiscus blossoms.
Courtney cleared her throat. “Are you okay?”
Mariah deeply inhaled. “Yeah … I’m okay. Why do you want to find him?”
“He took something from my grandmother, and he took something from me. I might be able to return what he stole from my grandmother.”
“He takes from everybody he meets, and he takes everything. If you’re lucky, you still have your soul, but he’ll try to claim that, too. I was fortunate to get out of there. Others, not so much. I keep thinking that he put some kind of hypnotic trance on me, and it’ll be just a matter of when and where that he’ll try to make me do something bad.”
“But you said you got out of there. How can he make you do something against your will if he’s not near you?”
“He’s in my brain. At one time he was in my heart. I guess that’s where the mistakes start and where they return to haunt you. I feel like I might have some kind of post traumatic syndrome. Listen, Courtney, I was your age once. I didn’t listen to my mother b
ecause I thought I knew the ways of the world. I always wanted to be working as an actress in films, but I eventually wound up working in carnivals. I grew up in New Orleans. My mother used to come here to Mambo Eve’s place. Eve always treated me like family.”
“I didn’t have much of a family. My grandmother is a little like the lady in the store, Mambo Eve—wise and kind.”
“Compassion was something hard to find in the carny world. Don’t get me wrong, there were some sweet and good people there, guys like Boots. But by and large, it was my house of the rising sun. And it was a hard life. Men like the Bandini brothers were always there to offset the good. And now you’re asking me about the very worst of the worst–the Prophet. He was calling himself Reverend John when I first met him. Wasn’t long before he’d convinced some of his followers he was a prophet from God. And they believed him.”
“You talked about getting out of there … where was there? Where is he?”
Mariah embraced her bare arms, the breeze blew through the bamboo, stalks rubbing together, creaking. Her eyes followed the black cat as it walked from the store and dropped to its belly, stalking a lizard warming in the sun on a brick paver. “Whatever he did to you, whatever he took from your grandmother, it’s not worth going there. Nothing’s worth that. He’s wicked—very evil. Men like him have a special place on reserve in hell. Walk away from this, okay?”
“I can’t. I don’t have anything to go back to. If nothing else, he knows who I am. I just hate the fact that I’m related by blood to him. Where is he?”
“What did you mean when you said if nothing else, he knows who I am?”
“It’s more complicated than I have time to explain right now. Please, if you know where he is, tell me.”
“Last time I saw him he was running a small compound on twenty acres, a cult of followers, in the hills of Virginia about thirty miles west of Leesburg. I can go inside and draw a map for you. But I’m warning you, don’t go there. They’ll do things to you that will make your skin crawl, and if he decides to kill you, the blood won’t be on his hands.”
