Rivers to Blood

by Michael Lister

  He looked confused, then shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ve met anybody quite as self-destructive as you.”

  “Then you really need to get out more.”

  I closed the door and apologized to Sandy. As I walked past him, I glanced down at the scar on his neck. From this angle I could see it better, and I realized it wasn’t just a straight line, but looked to be more complex.

  “That little fucker has a real hard-on for you, doesn’t he?” Sandy said.

  I had never heard him talk like that before, and I wondered if it was a result of the rape.

  “Not me so much as my job.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, are you?” he asked, his voice quiet again and slightly panicked below the surface.

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t know how much this is helping,” he said. “If we had to stop … I’m not sure what I’d do.”

  “We won’t stop,” I said.

  He nodded and gave me a small, tight-lipped smile.

  We were quiet a moment and he began to relax again.

  “You mind if I take a better look at your neck?” I asked. “Your collar covers part of it, and I still haven’t gotten a good look at the scar.”

  He turned his head and pulled back the light brown collar of his correctional officer uniform.

  I stood, walked around my desk, and leaned over to get a better look.

  It wasn’t just a cut, but a mark, a symbol of some sort. I was sure of it now. Whatever the symbol, it was significant to the rapist, and could very well be the key to catching him.

  The shank being used to inflict the wound had to be extremely sharp, almost like a scalpel. The scar consisted of a vertical line with a smaller horizontal line intersecting three-quarters of the way up on one end and two smaller lines at the other end extending out at a forty-five degree angle. This made it look like a cross on one end and an arrow on the other.

  “Do you know what it stands for?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Let me look into it and see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Before I could say anything else, the phone on my desk rang.

  “Chaplain Jordan,” I said.

  “John,” Jake said. “We’ve got another one.”

  “Another what?” I asked.

  “Body,” he said. “On the river. You’re not gonna believe this one. Dad said meet him at Turtle Mason’s houseboat.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Turtle Mason, also known as Snake Man Mason and Barefoot Mason, lived in a battered old houseboat on the Apalachicola River.

  The quintessential river rat, Turtle lived a primitive life in the hardest way possible, and seemed at least twice as old as his sixty-something years. Subsisting on cheap beer, homemade hooch, and the creatures he pulled from the river and swamp, Turtle caught snakes, turtles, and the occasional gator and sold them to a wholesaler who came to the end of the road to meet him every three weeks.

  A local legend, stories about Turtle had grown to mythic proportions over the years. He was missing teeth from inebriated brawls, toes from river rot, and chunks of calf muscle from gator bites. Whether on the hot pavement of town or deep in the snake-filled swamp, Turtle Mason never wore shoes.

  By the time Sandy and I had launched his boat at the end of the road, Rachel had arrived and we pulled up to the dock to pick her up. The day was bright and hot but the wind that whipped the faded flag at the landing helped and held the promise of rain.

  “Whatta we got?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “No idea but I can imagine.”

  “Crime scene unit’s on the way,” she said.

  I shook my head. If something had happened to Turtle Mason, the entire community would mourn—including me.

  Turtle and I had never been close. We were from different cultures. Unlike most of the kids I had grown up with, the river had never been a big part of my life. The river rat subculture was one of fishing, hunting, boating, skiing, tubing, and just hanging out on a sandbar—all in various stages of intoxication. Underage drinking and over-the-limit fishing and hunting weren’t activities the sheriff’s son was often invited to. But Turtle’s legend extended far beyond the banks of the river.

  Sandy gunned the motor, the bow of the boat coming up out of the water as we sped away from the landing. Expertly navigating us toward Turtle’s place, Sandy carefully negotiated the boat around branches floating down the river, fallen trees sticking up out of the water, and sandbars created by river bottom dredging done by the Corp of Engineers.

  As we raced past the thick green growth of the river swamps starting at the banks and stretching back for unseen miles, I wondered if Michael Jensen was hidden among them watching us. I had the same thought when we passed the dilapidated old camps spread sporadically along the embankments or the many houseboats moored to the cypress trees they held.

  When we arrived, hair windblown, eyes watery, we found Dad, two of his deputies—one of them Jake, Fred Goodwin, and Robert Pridgeon, his gray-and-green game warden’s uniform soaked through. Dad was standing in the small deck of Turtle’s houseboat. The others were seated in their boats, which were tied to Turtle’s.

  The homemade houseboat was a patchwork quilt of found materials, none of which matched. Under a rusted and dented tin roof, the small one-room floating shack was formed from cypress and pine planks, oak lumber, plywood, polyurethane, insulation, and old road signs.

  “This little place is gonna get real crowded in a few minutes,” Dad said. “I’d like for you and Rachel to take a look at it together before it does.”

  “Whatta we got?” Rachel asked.

  Dad shook his head. “Wouldn’t know how to tell you. Wouldn’t want to if I did. You’ll have to look for yourself. Just be ready. It’s bad.”

  Rachel and I stepped aboard the small houseboat, which was still rocking slightly from our wake. The tiny covered deck was filled with empty beer cans, fishing gear, and a single low-standing wooden chair.

  Inside, assaulted by the smell of death and decay, we found a smoke-saturated single room filled with empty beer cans, several glass aquariums, five-gallon plastic buckets, and croaker sacks. The dark room was damp and dank and you could see the river between the wooden planks forming the floor. In the center of the room a pallet consisting of two green army blankets and a grease and dirt-soiled pillow without a case laid directly on the floor.

  Sunlight streaming through the holes in the boards and the spaces between them provided the only illumination in the room.

  As my eyes adjusted, I could see that there was movement in several of the croaker sacks, and that the aquariums were full of snakes, turtles, and baby gators.

  “Are those sacks moving?” Rachel asked.

  “They’ve got snakes in them,” Dad said. “It’s how he made his living.”

  “Snakes?” Rachel said, panic in her voice.

  “And they’re not all in the croaker sacks or aquariums so watch your step.”

  Rachel shivered as she looked down around her feet, and I knew how she felt.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” she said.

  “I’ve got a gun,” Dad said.

  “I do too,” she said. “And I still want one of you to carry me.”

  “Just a quick look,” Dad said, “and then we’re out of here and we’ll let the crime scene techs deal with ’em.”

  Rachel nodded without looking up.

  As we continued moving forward, a snake slithered out of Turtle’s pallet and through two of the floor boards and dropped into the river below, making a loud splash.

  “What was that?” Rachel asked.

  “Fish jumping,” I said.

  “God,” she said. “I can’t remember when I’ve been so jumpy.”

  Clinging to us like dew, the dank air left a sticky sheen on our skin and clothes and dampened our hair, and as we drew closer to the back wall, the volume of flies buzzing about us greatly intensified.r />
  Dad stopped abruptly, and Rachel, looking down, walked into him. Stepping around her, I looked up to see Turtle suspended from the back wall of the houseboat.

  He was completely naked, the upper half of his body gray, the lower half dark purple. He was held upright by a noose around his neck that looked to be a leather strap of some kind nailed to the wall. Hands at his sides, feet on the floor, disfigured from decay, he looked like something found in a medieval torture chamber.

  In front of him on a small picnic table that looked to have been stolen from the state park, was a Victoria’s Secret catalog and a large grimy jar of Vaseline.

  “Ever seen anything like that?” Dad asked.

  We both nodded.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Where?”

  “Forensics textbook I read recently,” I said.

  Dad smiled. “My boy the bookworm.”

  “A training class in Miami,” Rachel said.

  “Is it what I think it is?” he asked.

  “Autoerotic asphyxia,” Rachel said. “The noose cuts off the air when you climax and it makes it more intense. But pass out and you’re dead.”

  Though it was difficult to look at, I studied the body for another moment. The sunken cheeks of Turtle’s toothless mouth were covered with gray stubble the color of his long ponytail. Above his dark purple swollen scrotum, his small flaccid penis looked particularly sad and silly.

  Unbidden and filled with a sad irony, a line from Hamlet came to mind.

  What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.

  “So this is probably not Jensen?” Dad said.

  “Both victims were hung,” Rachel said. “On or near the river.”

  “Both crimes have a sexual element,” I said.

  Dad’s face formed a question. “This one obviously does,” he said. “But the lynching?”

  “The killer tied his hands so his genitals would be exposed,” I said.

  He squinted as he thought about it. “If that was intentional.”

  “It was,” Rachel and I said in unison.

  “But this could be accidental, right?” he asked, nodding toward Turtle.

  “If it is,” I said, “there will be evidence he’s done this before. Other paraphernalia.”

  “Marks on his neck,” Rachel added.

  That made me think of the rapist at PCI and I felt guilty for not being there right now trying to catch him.

  “Though the body’s in such bad shape it may be hard to tell,” she added.

  “One way to find out,” Dad said. “Get the snakes out and the lab in. Can you two stick around?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “I’ve got to get back to the prison,” I said. “I’ll check in with you when my shift ends.”

  “Either of you give me a read on this?” he asked.

  We both nodded. “I don’t think it’s what it appears to be,” I said. “It’s just a feeling so it means absolutely nothing, but it’s what I sense. It’s too close in proximity and too similar to the other one. Too many things connect them—the river, the escape, the method—and as different as the circumstances and victims are, they were both found with nooses around their necks.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I had nodded off with a book in my hand when Walker’s bark woke me.

  It was early evening, the sun still blaring down on the tin can I called home. I had come in after a busy afternoon of counseling inmates and avoiding Chaplain Singer and Warden Matson, changed into shorts and a T-shirt and pulled several books from my shelves.

  The books were illustrated guides to signs and symbols. I was trying to identify the mark I had seen on Sandy Hartman’s neck. Obviously far more tired than I realized, I had only made it a quarter way through the first book before I dozed off.

  When I heard Walker I closed the book dropped it on the pile on the floor next to me, stumbled off the couch, and looked through the window.

  My heart rate quickened and my throat constricted when I saw Anna getting out of her car. We hadn’t spoken since she told me she was pregnant, and I wasn’t ready to talk to her now.

  When I opened the door she was squatting next to her car petting Walker. I pushed the door all the way open and sat down in the doorway, my feet on the steps, and waited.

  On his way to wellness, Walker had filled out and had most of his hair back. He still barked, jumped, ran around, and wet himself, but he didn’t flinch when you tried to pet him.

  When Anna stood, Walker immediately began to bark and jump on her. She squatted back down and pointed at and scolded him. He calmed down and appeared to nod as she talked to him, but when she stood and tried to walk away, he yelped and began pawing her again.

  “Any suggestions?” she said to me.

  “I think it’s good practice,” I said. “Children and puppies can’t be that different.”

  She frowned and rolled her eyes.

  “He doesn’t look like a puppy,” she said.

  “Trauma from the abuse he suffered stunted his development,” I said. “He’s a puppy on the inside.”

  For a long moment she just stood there staring at me, seemingly oblivious to Walker barking and jumping on her, and then she burst into tears.

  I jumped up and bounced down the steps, crossing the distance between us in seconds. When I reached her, I grabbed Walker’s collar and slung him off her. He yelped and ran off a few feet and began barking and wetting again.

  “You just sent his recovery into regression,” she said, wiping her eyes and sniffling.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What were you doing before I got here?” she asked.

  I told her. Everything.

  “I want us to go inside and I want to help you look for the symbol in your books,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “I know we have things we need to say,” she said, “but I don’t want to talk about any of that tonight.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve missed you. Need to be with you. I want us to act the way we did before I told you … what I did. I need you to be just the same. I can’t handle it if you’re mad at me.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure what I was. I felt so much. And it was hard to distinguish between emotions. But I could be whatever she needed me to be tonight. I could forget about Mom, the escape, the murders, the rapes, the world and everything in it. Could even kick Walker if I needed to.

  Inside, while I fixed us some sweet tea, she changed out of the dress Walker had muddied, borrowing a pair of sweat pants and a Florida State T-shirt. Finishing the drinks before she had changed and freshened up, I began picking up around the trailer—putting empty Dr. Pepper cans in the recycle bin, a scattered dish or two in the sink, and a few magazines and newspapers in the trash.

  When she rejoined me we sat on the couch beside each other in silence for a few moments drinking our tea.

  After a while she said, “Thank you.”

  I smiled at her.

  “I’m gonna break my own rule,” she said, “and say one thing about my, ah, situation, and then we’ll speak of it no more.”

  “They’re your rules,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “Took all precautions.”

  “Then it must be fate,” I said.

  “I’m gonna let that little comment slide for now because I don’t want to get into it,” she said, “but don’t push it. So what are we looking for?”

  I drew the symbol I had seen on Sandy Hartman’s neck on the back of an envelope I was using for a bookmark. It looked like a short sideways cross with an arrow on the end.

  “I’ve seen that before,” she said.

  “I thought
the same thing.”

  We each took a book from the stack and began flipping through them.

  Sitting so close to Anna again, I could feel my desire rising, my hurt and anger and disappointment dissipating.

  She’d never been mine. But until now there had been a chance. Slim, but existent. Now there was none.

  Anna sat with her legs folded beneath her, the tops of her tanned toes exposed. Seeing the way the soft fabric of the sweat pants and T-shirt fit her soon-to-be transformed body made it difficult to concentrate, and the fragrance drifting over me every time she moved or tossed her hair, subtle and tinged with a hint of sweetness, didn’t help.

  I pictured her naked, as I often did, but this time with the heightened beauty the blush of pregnancy brings—smooth, rounded belly, arched back, full breasts, maternal glow.

  “Do you think all his victims have the same mark Sandy does?”

  “DeLisa Lopez was supposed to make some discrete inquiries about that this afternoon,” I said. “My guess is they do.”

  She nodded without looking up, her gaze trained on the book in her lap.

  I looked back down at mine, and we were silent for a few minutes.

  “This it?” she asked.

  Chapter Thirty

  “It’s the sign for Sagittarius,” she said.

  The symbol she was pointing to was similar but not exactly like the one carved into Sandy’s neck. The proportions were different, and it was longer.

  “An astrological sign,” I said. “That’s original.”

  “Says it’s the sign of the archer,” she said. “In Greek mythology when Cronus was trying to seduce Philyra, he hid from his jealous wife in the form of a stallion. Then a child was born that was half man and half horse—a centaur.”

  I studied the symbol a little longer, trying to recall what I had seen earlier in the day.

  “Could this be it?” she asked. “The arrow could be phallic. Maybe he thinks he’s a stud or hung like a horse.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, but we better keep looking—and I’m not just saying that because I don’t want you to leave.”

  She smiled. “Oh I know. You’re just thorough.”

  “I really am,” I said. “This could take all night.”