The Butterfly Forest (Mystery/Thriller)

by Lowe, Tom

  “If they did, she didn’t mention it to her mother and me when I questioned her about Soto and why he might have been following her.”

  “She was a college kid. Maybe she or her boyfriend did see them growing, and then decided to harvest a few leaves to take back to college.”

  I could hear Nick outside on Jupiter’s cockpit, stoking heated charcoals in my grill while he cooked snook and snapper. The aroma of olive oil, fresh fish and lime hung in the air. Max, the consummate beggar, was at his feet. “I don’t think Molly would have picked marijuana leaves.”

  Dave looked over the frame of his glasses. “Why?”

  “I believe she was blatantly honest, a free spirit with few secrets. If she’d seen the marijuana, or even taken some, I think she would have mentioned it.”

  “I wonder what kind of an operation is in there. It wouldn’t be difficult to grow and hide marijuana in Florida deep within a remote forest. If those plants we see in the image are the tip of the iceberg, there might be a hell of a lot more.”

  “Enough to get Molly and Mark killed.”

  Dave stood when Nick entered and headed to the galley. He chatted in Greek to Max. She was a few steps behind him.

  Dave said, “The picture of the butterfly you sent me… it was indeed the atala. I spoke with an entomologist friend of mine at the University of Miami. He said the atala, in the caterpillar stage, is very colorful, too, spending its days gorging on the highly toxic coontie plant. And, as a butterfly, predators rarely attack it because of its bright red body. Birds instinctively know the atala was weaned on a plant that’s very poisonous to them. Toxins from the coontie remain in the butterfly after it emerges from its cocoon.”

  “Beautiful, fragile and yet deadly to predators.”

  “Yes, and it’s funny how nature does its balancing act. These particular butterflies can’t escape quickly. They fly very slowly, almost without effort. It’s as if they float in flight—a suspended animation, if you will. That can lead to the illusion that they aren’t afraid of people.”

  “Maybe that’s why I got so close to the one I photographed.”

  Dave looked at the image on the screen for a moment, his eyes settling back to mine. “Somebody’s growing marijuana, probably a lot of it, somewhere in the Ocala National Forest. Do you think this guy they picked up, Palmer, is our farmer?”

  “He could have been hired by someone. That would explain why he was there. Palmer told investigators he was searching for Civil War relics.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t think a guy comes out of prison, after serving forty years, and takes up a hobby like hunting for antiquities in the middle of a national forest.”

  “Then what do you think he was doing there?”

  “He was hunting for something, but I don’t have a clue as to what.”

  “Do you think he killed the first girl, the one in the fairy costume?”

  “No, but I believe he knew her or had met her.”

  “Over the phone, you’d mentioned the late-night drum beating ceremony with dozens of people who hadn’t had a shower in a while. A Midsummer’s Eve with a lot of dirt behind the ears.”

  “Something like that,” I said. “When Palmer spoke, he seemed like he genuinely cared for the girl’s welfare.”

  “It’s a possibility. But the hard facts are this: He was locked up for forty years. Murder. He hadn’t been with a woman in a lifetime. All of the sudden, deep in a forest, he stumbles into a treasure trove—a group of drugged-out hippies, many of the girls dressed in fantasy clothing. For a guy like that, it’s a Midsummer Night’s wet dream. Maybe he tried to take her, she fought back, and he snapped her neck. He buried her in a hole, and now the causality list is three bodies. So much for penal rehabilitation.”

  “Fish ready in three minutes,” Nick shouted from the cockpit.

  Dave pulled a barstool next to my computer screen as I brought up the last picture in Molly’s camera. It was another angle of the forest, coontie plants in the foreground, marijuana in the background hidden beneath oaks. “Gotcha,” I said.

  “What’d you find?’ Dave leaned closer.

  I enlarged the grainy image. “It appears to be a man—a man I’ve seen before.”

  “But I wonder if Molly ever even saw him there?”

  Under the oaks, hidden in shadows, Frank Soto stared into the camera lens.

  FIFTY

  Nick brought in a large platter of grilled fish and vegetables. He set the platter on the bar.

  Dave looked from the computer screen to me. “Who’s that?”

  “Frank Soto.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.” I looked closer at the image. A second man, his face blocked by foliage, stood to the right of Soto. Only the man’s legs and mid-section were visible. “Soto was not alone.”

  Dave adjusted the glasses on his nose. “Too bad we can’t make out his face.”

  “What are you two lookin’ at?” Nick asked, wiping his fingers on a napkin.

  “We’re looking at the man who could have killed three people,” I said.

  “Lemme see.” Nick leaned in, the smell of onions and oregano clinging to his T-shirt, sweat popping from his furrowed brow. “It looks kinda fuzzy to me. How’d you tell if he’s the killer?”

  “His appearance and his build. Name’s Frank Soto. The way he’s stalking Molly and Mark in this picture is the same stance I saw him in when he was stalking Molly and her mother, Elizabeth. There’s another man standing near him.”

  Nick snorted, “I see his legs. No face, huh? If the guy killed the college kids, how do you have the camera? Wouldn’t he toss it in a lake or something?”

  “Probably, if he’d caught them then. But this was the first time Molly and Mark went into the forest. They were scouting the area, she told me, for the coontie plants.”

  Dave said, “And they found hundreds, maybe thousands of marijuana plants.”

  “They did?” Nick asked.

  Dave touched the screen with the tip of his finger. “Right there. You can just see them growing behind the trees.”

  I said, “But Molly and Mark may not have noticed them. Here’s why. Shadows were pointing toward the camera, which means the marijuana may have been more in silhouette to the human eye. The camera was on automatic mode when these photos were taken. The camera compensated for the shadows and overexposed around the edges of the frame. So we can see the marijuana, but the tops of the oaks trees are overexposed because they were closer to a late afternoon sun. And the two men in the picture are in more of a black-and-white look because of this.”

  Dave sat back on his stool, his face disheveled in thought. “So Frank Soto assumed the kids had found the goods, snapped his picture and that of his accomplice standing next to him. The pot producers, along with their operation, had been made. Explains why Soto risked the daylight abduction in a crowded Walmart parking lot.”

  I nodded. “Was it Soto who went after them or did the orders come from someone else? And if it was someone else, was it this figure standing near him? Is that figure the man, the killer, Luke Palmer described to the sheriff?”

  “Maybe he’s Luke Palmer,” Dave said.

  “That’s a possibility,” I said. “Molly told me the day she and Mark were scouting in the forest, they were very lost. Sunlight was fading. They were frightened. They snapped pictures in hope it would give them points-of-reference to go back in to reintroduce the butterflies to the wild. She said they never actually saw anyone following them, but heard sounds. She said it felt like they were being watched and followed.”

  “Maybe it was an animal,” Nick said.

  I almost smiled. “I believe this animal walked on two legs. Molly said she and Mark eventually saw lights from an approaching car on one of the sandy roads leading into the forest. They believe the lights from the car may have scared off whoever was following them. They flagged the car down. It was a couple of park rangers who’d been s
earching for them because it was getting dark and a storm was approaching.”

  Dave said, “You now have proof of a marijuana operation somewhere in the Ocala National Forest. You have an image of Frank Soto, the man who almost abducted the Monroe woman. He’s standing with someone, maybe not Palmer, and God knows how much marijuana is growing in there. Do you think they’ll release Palmer?”

  “Depends on what forensics tells them. Let’s see if I can get something else. Let’s see what happens if I zoom into the mystery man.”

  “How you do that on the computer?” Nick asked.

  “Like this.” I cut out a section of the image from just below the tree leaves blocking the man’s face to above his knees. I zoomed into his left hand, just visible in the frame. The sleeve was turned up a quarter. “Molly’s camera has excellent resolution. Its pixels are holding together well as I zoom close. See that?”

  “Looks like he was wearing a watch?” Dave said.

  “And I think I see a wedding band.”

  Nick said, “Get closer and we might see the dirt under the dude’s fingernails.”

  “That’s close as I can get. And that’s close enough.”

  “Why?” Nick asked.

  “Because Palmer wasn’t wearing a watch or a wedding band when he came out of the river.”

  “And that guy was,” Dave studied the image.

  “Then who is it?” Nick asked, squeezing fresh lemons on the fish.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  Nick and Dave fixed plates of grilled snook, snapper, and Greek peppers covered with tomatoes and feta cheese. I picked up my cell and stepped out onto the cockpit as Nick shouted, “Sean, you gotta eat, man. You can’t let this fish get cold.”

  “Keep it warm for me, Nick.” I called Sheriff Clayton and told him about the photos and the marijuana plants. “I’m not sure where the pot plants are, but I’d imagine they’re not far from the coontie plants Molly and Mark found.”

  “Look, O’Brien, we’ve got Luke Palmer in for triple murder. I just gave a news conference.”

  “And now you can give an update.”

  “I told everybody from CNN to the networks that blood found on Palmer’s clothes, clothes found in his backpack, matched blood from the deer in the grave with Mark and Molly. And it does.”

  “Sheriff—”

  “O’Brien, the bits and pieces of vomit we found near the grave of the other girl, Nicole Davenport, matched Palmer’s DNA.”

  “He admitted he vomited when he saw her in the grave.”

  “Maybe he puked after he put her in the grave. He could have been coming off a drunk. Who the fuck knows what makes psychopaths tick? Maybe he got off killing her, but had some kind of guilt complex and tossed his cookies.”

  “A psychopath is incapable of a guilt complex.”

  “Whatever, but the bottom line is we have this perp locked up, and he’s going to stay that way.”

  “I’m e-mailing the photos to you, Sheriff. If the guy in the photo is not Palmer, it may be the man Palmer said pulled the trigger on Molly and Mark.”

  “I believe Palmer made that up. He’s probably working with Soto as some kind of security detail. That explains why Soto went after Molly Monroe. Palmer happened to be the one that cut down these kids when they came back to the forest because they thought Soto was locked up.”

  “And since Soto escaped, he could have easily returned to the forest, made a connection with the growers and did the murders. Palmer may be nothing more than a witness, a guy out of prison simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “That’s all speculation, O’Brien. And I can’t put much stock in an ex con, a guy who’s been out of San Quentin less than two months, hiking around a national forest, communing with nature while he’s hunting for Civil War shit, like he says he was doing.”

  “He needs to be given a reasonable chance to make bond.”

  “And what damn chance did he give these kids?”

  “I knew Molly when she was alive. I saw her when she was dead, lifted out of that worm-infested shit hole. That’s the first place I’d like to see Palmer go if he killed them. If he didn’t, and if you rush into a seemingly clear-cut case because it’s easier to do, you’re doing Molly, Mark and Nicole a disservice, big as the one you’d shove up Palmer’s ass because it’s convenient.”

  “That’s enough! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “A man spent eleven years on Florida’s death row because of me. He came within minutes of having a hot needle in his arm. And it was all because the evidence was too easy. I went against my better judgment, relying more on physical forensics than what was obvious—an innocent man was framed.”

  “Nobody’s framing Palmer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We pulled him outta the fuckin’ river. You were there, remember? I’m hanging up, O’Brien.”

  “Are you getting deputies in the forest to look for the marijuana field?”

  “We’ve got the killer. We’ve found plenty of marijuana and meth labs out there. But it’s been awhile, not since Aileen Wuornos, that we had us a triple murderer.”

  “And what if you have the wrong man?”

  “That’s up to a jury.”

  “I’m e-mailing the photographs to you. If you get deputies and a team of searchers in the forest tomorrow morning to find that marijuana field, you might find Soto and whoever stood near him in the picture. Sheriff, listen! Please—”

  He hung up as Max trotted from the galley to the cockpit. Her snout was wet with olive oil. She cocked her head at me, eyes bright. “Max, was I shouting?” I looked at my hand still gripping the phone, knuckles white. One message was left while I had been speaking with the sheriff. I played it. “Sean, this is Elizabeth. Molly’s funeral is set for Monday at two o’ clock. Can you be there?”

  I sat on the transom railing and looked up into the night sky. Max walked over to me. I lifted her and pointed to the brightest star, Sirius. “Twinkle, twinkle little star, Max. What do you say that we make a wish together? Let’s wish that they’d prove who was responsible for those murders. You know why? Because he’ll probably kill again. I fear for Elizabeth, and I’m not convinced the man sitting in the Marion County jail killed her daughter. If they don’t follow the leads to track down who did this, I’ll—”

  Something in the sky caught Max’s eye. A meteor burst from the eastern hemisphere rushing toward the west, its fiery tail carving the heart out of the blackness. It disappeared in the western horizon toward the national forest, a place that now felt like the darkest valley in the universe.

  And I knew I was about to walk through it.

  FIFTY-TWO

  The next morning, after leaving Max with Dave, I ordered a cup of coffee-to-go from Kim Davis at the Tiki Bar. She sealed the Styrofoam cup with a plastic lid and said, “One cream, one sugar for a guy who’s too sweet to need sugar.”

  “Thanks, Kim. I don’t know if sweet’s the word. I’ve got to do some things that I know will get beyond bitter. I’m going to be the bad taste in a few mouths—including a sheriff who’s ready to have the DA prosecute a man before all the evidence is gathered.”

  “Why the rush to judgment?”

  “Because we live in a society of instant everything. The sheriff’s department has its own Facebook page. National media are here. The election’s in November. I don’t think jobs in law enforcement or the judiciary should be a popularity contest.” I smiled and picked up the coffee cup. “But who cares what I think?”

  “I care. And so do the people you help, those who seem to fall through the cracks. Maybe this man in jail is one of them. You think about other people, Sean. It’s something that can’t be faked. Be careful.”

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  ON THE WAY TO OCALA, I drove through the small community of Astor. I kept under the posted thirty miles-per-hour speed limit. Past the hardware store, t
he feed and seed store, and beyond the single traffic light, the road became curvy. I left Astor in less than the forty-five seconds it took to drive through it. I drove under a canopy of live oaks with arched limbs interlocked like fingers over the road. The branches and leaves blocked most of the morning sunlight. It was as if I was driving through a dark tunnel, a glow of daylight somewhere beyond the old trees with their outstretched limbs.

  I drove out of the long womb into the brightness of mid-morning, the sky cloudless and indigo blue. There was a small, white church off the road. The church was almost hidden by a lone oak tree draped in crusty beards of gray Spanish moss.

  Although the speed limit was back to fifty-five, I didn’t accelerate. I slowed down. I don’t know why, but I simply took my foot from the gas pedal and pulled off the road onto the shoulder, just beyond the gravel drive leading to the church. I backed up, drove across the vacant lot and turned off the motor. The engine ticked as it cooled.

  There was a small cemetery to the left of the church. I got out of the Jeep and stood under a bough of the old oak. A blackbird flew from the tree to a cedar near the church. Speckled light flickered across the small graveyard. Some of the old headstones tipped to the right under pressure of the huge oak’s hidden roots.

  I thought about Elizabeth’s voice message, a plea really, for me to attend Molly’s funeral. I started to get back in the Jeep, but I found myself walking around it up two wooden steps leading to the church door. I touched the door handle. The faded brass was cool in my hand, the sun’s hot breath on my neck. I looked to my left and caught the blackbird quietly staring at me from the top of the cedar tree. Spanish moss was motionless in a morning with air that felt dense and somehow trapped.

  I turned the handle. The door opened, slowly yawning wide, almost as if it inhaled the humid air outside. I stepped in, wondering if the door would slam behind me. The old church smelled of age, the hidden scent of worn Bibles, faded flowers and starched clothes.