“It’s okay.” Moni placed a firm hand on his shoulder. His trembling gradually eased. “No one could have known what would happen.”
Randy grasped her hand as if it were a life preserver. His breathing steadily calmed. She felt his heart rate through his palm normalizing as well.
“I’m sorry,” Randy said. “I know you’ve got work to do. This is pathetic.”
“No, it’s not,” Moni said. “You’re going to relive this moment in your brain a million times, and it’ll always be hard. Just take your time and we’ll get through it.”
Sneed rolled his eyes. He didn’t fix on giving him any more time. Randy saw his gesture and got going.
“So I was in the skiff and Robbie radioed the Coast Guard. He told me they were on the way. And I told him… I told him to hurry up onto my boat. Robbie leapt across the water between our boats and up it came.” He held his bandaged hand sideways and had his hand with the snake tattoo rise from underneath. Randy grabbed his hand so hard Moni feared he might have broken a finger. “The gator came outta the water and snapped onto his arm. I heard Robbie scream. I saw the horror on his face the moment he realized he’d never see his wife and son again. I reached for him, but I couldn’t make it. In the blink of an eye, they were gone into the lagoon. I didn’t even think. I just plunged my hand into the water.” He placed his bandaged hand on the table. “They said these are second degree burns. I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve been stabbed before and this hurt a hell of a lot worse. I would have dove into the water after him. I should have… You don’t know how bad I… It’s just the pain…”
“You did all you could.” Moni reached across the table. He yanked his bandaged hand away before she could touch it. “Something about that gator made it immune to the acid, but it would have fried you. There’s nothing you could have done at that point.”
Sneed looked down his nose at Randy as if the grizzly detective would have jumped into the acid bath and snapped the gator’s neck if that would have saved his brother. Luckily, Randy didn’t notice anything besides the back of his own hand as he shielded his face.
“My hand was burning, so I ran. I slammed the throttle and bolted out of there so freaked out I didn’t even look back. The skiff’s motor lasted about a minute and then it died. No gas. Those fuckers drained the tank.”
“What fuckers?” Sneed asked. “I thought you were fighting a gator?”
“Like I said, it wasn’t a normal gator. This beast wasn’t a creation of God, I tell ya. It left me out there on my skiff stranded in the middle of the lagoon. The smell of the rotten acid in the water and the fish getting fried alive with their hot guts bursting—it made me heave over the side. When I saw that my puke didn’t boil in the water, I knew I had escaped from the acid. The gator was still out there, though. If it wasn’t for the Lagoon Watcher, it woulda got me for sure.”
Sneed grilled him on the timing of his rescue. Harry Trainer, known in boating circles as the pesky Lagoon Watcher, fished Randy Cooper out of his skiff around a quarter to three in the morning. Somehow, he had heard the distress call before the Coast Guard and found himself in better position for a response—less than fifteen minutes after the call. He came wearing a black wetsuit rather than the trademark tropical shirt and shorts everybody knows him for in daylight hours. Randy said the Watcher didn’t seem all that surprised by his story, but he circled the boat around the lagoon while Randy called out his brother’s name—all while skillfully avoiding the acid slick near Palm Bay. Randy had screamed until his lungs ached. For the longest time he heard nothing besides the water lapping up against the Watcher’s boat.
“Out of the blue, I heard a bird flapping its wings,” Randy said. “When I looked in that direction, I saw a pair of purple eyes. At that point, I was ready for the damn gator—shotgun or no shotgun—if it meant finding Robbie. I told the Watcher, ‘Take me there.’ He must have seen it too, but he didn’t ask questions. Then I saw it—the red-shouldered hawk. It was…” He wiped the perspiration off his face and clenched his fist over his chin until he could spit out the words. “It was perched on Robbie’s life vest. Just the life vest and shoulders—that’s all I saw. His head was… It was gone.”
While Randy grabbed a tissue and dabbed his face, Moni pondered how his brother had been passed from a gator’s jaws to the surgical serial killer. Robbie’s corpse had the usual grocery list of organs taken from it. The head had come off along a line as straight as an architectural drawing. The only injuries that didn’t match the previous victims were the deep gator bite on the arm and the second-degree burns that had reddened most of his skin. The acid had roasted Robbie, but not for so long that his flesh dissolved down to the muscle. The gator—or something else—had pulled him out of the acid slick. They couldn’t tell whether it happened before or after the beheading. They wouldn’t know without seeing his head, and by now everybody knew that wouldn’t turn up.
How could the killer make the gator cooperate? What other animals work for him?
Moni offered Randy a tissue. He proudly brushed her hand aside and wadded the original tissue, which he had soaked, into his pocket. When he finally redeployed his tough guy scowl and looked her in the eyes, Moni fired back with the question that had been gnawing at her.
“What about the hawk? Was something evil about it like with the gator?”
Lines creased across Randy’s forehead as if he were aging by the decade right before her eyes. “The damn bird… It lured us into that trap. Then it called me over with its purple eyes so I could see my brother’s body. The site will haunt me for the rest of my life. The moment I shined a flashlight on the hawk, it took off like I startled it, but it didn’t make a sound. It flew as clumsily as a winged donkey. I would have sworn it had been shot, but I know I didn’t hit it.”
As her memory flashed, Moni’s heart raced so fast that the pulses through her blood vessels could barely keep up. She remembered how the raven had flown crookedly after she had pulled it off her windshield. It didn’t have purple eyes, but the hawk didn’t either the first time Randy spotted it. The bird had set him and his brother up for an attack. Moni wondered whether the killer had dropped the raven on her car for the same reason. Did she narrowly avoid death when she touched the raven? Or did the murderer leave it for Mariella instead?
Moni had no idea who could manipulate animals like that. But Sneed had a strong notion.
“How did the Lagoon Watcher react when he saw what was left of Robbie?” Sneed asked. “I can’t imagine an honest scientist would have seen such a sight before.”
“I was too, uh, emotional to pay that guy much mind,” Randy said. “Eventually, he tapped me on the shoulder and told me we should bring the body on board before a gator or shark rips it apart. Now when he saw it, the Watcher didn’t seem disgusted at all. Hell, he was fascinated by it. It reminded me of the first time I watched my dad gut a deer.”
“So you think the behavior of the Lagoon Watcher, Harry Trainer, was unusual?” Sneed asked as he leaned close to the microphone. When Randy agreed, he pressed on. “I suppose that’s not a stretch. His role in all of this is questionable, if you ask me. He got there eighteen minutes before the Coast Guard. You didn’t see any other boater on the water. So he was the only person in your proximity when your brother went under. Now I don’t know how the killer slices up his victims, but I’m sure your timeline of events would give the Watcher plenty of time to do some carving.”
“You think that he…” Randy gasped. His face whitened.
“Hold on.” Moni blocked the conclusion from leaving his lips. “If this guy with the corny name was the killer, why would he rescue you, Randy? You said yourself that you were vulnerable out there on the skiff.”
While Randy shook his head and shrugged, Sneed answered for him.
“Maybe it’s because he knew the Coast Guard was on the way. The Watcher had time for one victim, but he figured he couldn’t put both through the meat grinder before the searchlights came
out.
“And this wasn’t the first time he’s been conveniently near one of these murder scenes,” Sneed continued. “My old pal Matt Kane, may God bless his soul, he saw the Watcher just before he found those two Mexicans dead. And then Kane became the next victim.” Sneed pounded his fist into his palm. “I best have a word with him.”
Moni couldn’t deny that it made tremendous sense. The Lagoon Watcher had been some type of environmental scientists who went a little whacko. Maybe he developed the mutated bacteria and set it loose, Moni thought. Yet, if the psycho scientist had beheaded Kane because he saw something at the murder scene, what mutilation did he envision for the young girl who had witnessed the closely-guarded secrets of his killing method?
The pickup truck that lingered outside Mariella’s school yesterday—who had been behind the wheel with binoculars? Whether it had been the Lagoon Watcher or some other kind of watcher, Moni knew exactly what he wanted.
“What types of vehicles does Trainer own?” Moni asked Sneed.
“I gotta check up on it,” he replied.
She didn’t need an answer. Moni just knew.
Chapter 12
Aaron felt as smooth as James Bond when Professor Swartzman rang him up at six in the morning and told him they were wanted at the sheriff’s office for some top secret caper. When he got there and poured through the police report about the purple-eyed gator, Aaron’s bravery flew out the window.
His head kept replaying his last dive in the lagoon. The water management lady said she saw something huge, but he had brushed it off and stayed in there. If he had swam a little longer that day, maybe they’d have crime scene photos of his body all burned red by acid with a gaping hole in his neck.
“We better be more careful around the lagoon from now on,” Swartzman said as he pointed out the witness’ description of a monstrous gator.
Aaron realized that saying they’d be more careful didn’t mean the professor would refrain from ordering someone—namely his least-favorite student—into the water in the name of ground-breaking research. The admissions officer should have told him that the tuition payment included his life. Too bad his dad wouldn’t buy that as an excuse for quitting.
Lead detective Sneed summoned them into his office for a briefing on the biological jigsaw puzzle of this case. They weren’t the only scientists he invited.
Harry Trainer looked totally wiped out—like he had just nosedived off his long board from a 20-foot breaker. His thin blond hair barely clung on the peripheries of his dome. His forehead glowed red, but not with his usual over-the-top tan. The Lagoon Watcher had lost his cool.
“Harry, have you gotten any sleep since you rescued the boater?” asked a noticeably concerned Swartzman.
“Rest? These people don’t believe in rest,” he replied with the veins in his neck flaring. “They think endless cups of cheap, bitter coffee are a proper substitute for sleep.” He faced Sneed. “I beg to differ.”
The detective let the man’s griping roll off him with a regal jutting of his chin. Much like a lion rules its terrain, Sneed ensured that his dominance resonated through his personal office. He sat behind a manly oak desk with broad legs. On it sat four glass-encased antique revolvers. One looked Civil War era and had a Confederate flag imprinted on the white handle. Aaron wondered how many men that baby had blown away on the battlefields.
The detective had lined his walls and shelves with framed press clippings from Georgia papers about murderers getting arrested or convicted. The photo that really caught Aaron’s attention featured two young police officers with bad ‘70s mustaches standing with their guns drawn like a poster from an old Western movie. Upon second look, Aaron recognized one guy as a much younger detective Sneed. Both men had the same last name on their badges, through.
“Is that your little brother?” Aaron asked Sneed as he pointed out the photo. “Is he still an officer in Georgia?”
The bitter glare Sneed pelted him with nearly knocked Aaron out of his chair.
“This is not a damn barbecue. We ain’t here to reminisce about family times,” Sneed said. Swartzman started apologizing on behalf of his student, but the detective buried his gesture. “We’re here because there’s a killer on the loose and it’s pretty clear that the bacteria in the lagoon and the crazy shit it’s doing to the animals are his signatures. All of you have seen it. You’re supposedly the experts. So you tell me how someone could pull this off.”
The three scientists exchanged perplexed glances. Swartzman hadn’t made up his mind and Trainer clearly didn’t want any part of this. After a sleepless night out on the lagoon and a morning getting batted around the sheriff’s office, Trainer wouldn’t hear any complaints from Aaron. He figured that if anybody should take the fall, the rookie might as well stick his arm out before the hungry jungle cat.
“I’ll tell you, between the manatee, the hawk and the gator, I’d say the bacterial infection makes animals aggressive,” Aaron said. “And it takes way lots to hurt them. The manatee brushed off a propeller. The gator took a shotgun blast like a mosquito bite. In both cases, the water turned acidic, but it was a hell of a lot more potent in this last case. I doubt there’s a living thing left in the waters of Palm Bay besides the bacteria. So if you boil it down, someone has introduced this freak show bacteria into the lagoon so they can make infected animals bring victims to them. It’s all about dissecting them and harvesting the organs.”
With an incredulous gasp, Swartzman swiveled his chair toward his student and let him have it.
“You just leapt so high to reach that conclusion that you’re standing on the moon. If this gator was infected, and we have no confirmation that it was without a sample, it still doesn’t mean the bacteria made it attack those men. Gators are naturally aggressive. That’s what they do! And to think someone could train a gator to fetch and catch like a hunting dog—that’s a complete joke.”
Aaron shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. He had taken one for the team and the coach still chewed him out in front of everybody.
Sneed ignored the grilling. He had focused on Trainer’s reaction the whole time. The Lagoon Watcher didn’t appear outraged at Aaron’s theory. He looked amused by it. Sneed’s eyes widened when he spotted the Watcher sending Aaron a nod as if he knew he had caught onto something.
“I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve seen an animal with a purple mark act out,” Sneed told Trainer. Furrowing his sunburned brow, the scientist crossed his arms and offered nothing. “Come on, Watcher, you’re out there more than anybody. Don’t hold back on me, now.”
“Hold back?” he asked. “What more do you want? I told you everything that happened there three times. I’ve done plenty.”
“Everything, huh?” Sneed huffed. “I still ain’t heard a good explanation why you were out checking for sea turtle nests in the middle of the night.”
“Because I care about the creatures that share this earth with me,” the Watcher said. “You protect people—supposedly you do. I protect the inhabitants of this planet. In case your officers haven’t noticed while they’ve set up speed traps along every causeway over the lagoon, Central Florida’s treasured estuary is on the verge of ruin.” Trainer ran through every pollutant in the environmental science textbook, and a few that had Aaron scratching his head. He gave the old-timer speech about how the lagoon used to be so clear that they could see the bottom and dive after lobsters. “I’ve been telling people for years that they should close all the wastewater dumping pipes and clean up the farm runoff. Have they listened? Not one bit. And now, surprise, surprise, we have highly deadly mutated bacteria. Sort of poetic justice, isn’t it?”
He didn’t get a single nod from the men in the room. They weren’t on the same wavelength as the Lagoon Watcher. He operated on a channel straight out of Neptune.
Aaron stocked his DVD player with flicks like Endless Summer instead of crime thrillers, yet even he saw the Lagoon Watcher’s motive. Sick and dying a
nimals wouldn’t sway politicians—after all, dolphins couldn’t pay lobbyists with sardines. But an ecological catastrophe killing several people a week would light a fire under their asses. If the media picked out pollution in the lagoon as a reason for the headline-grabbing deaths, they’d cork every toxic spigot the next day.
He studied his professor’s expression for a sign of the same revelation, but Swartzman had his forehead in his hand as he shook his head. He looked bummed that his old friend had pretty much handed the detective the key to his cell.
“So you wanna tell me how you killed all those folks?” Sneed asked. Trainer hollered denials, but the detective pressed on like a steam train running the frantic scientist over. “You made the bacteria to terrorize this community so bad that we’d leave your precious lagoon alone. You think some fucking fish are more important than people?”
“I made it? That’s impossible!” He sprang from his seat. Sneed rose with him so their eyes stayed level. “I had nothing to do with that purple gunk. I’m being framed over my political views!”
Aaron didn’t think an extreme shade of green existed that could represent the Lagoon Watcher’s one-man political party. Not much for free speech inside his office, Sneed let his hand linger over his revolver—and not one of the antiques in the glass cases.
“Sit yer ass down,” the detective growled. “I’m not done asking questions.”
A swollen vein on Sneed’s forehead nearly burst like a knotted hose when the haggard scientist blew him off and spun Swartzman’s chair toward him. Peering down on the professor’s receding hairline, Trainer couldn’t even draw eye contact from his former research partner.
“I could use a little backup here. What gives? Shouldn’t you return the favor?”
Swartzman’s face twisted sour. It reminded Aaron of the look he had seen on the professor’s face when Trainer bought up some incident about NASA. He couldn’t let it slip by this time.
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