by Tom Lowe
I reached in the glove box and took out the Ziploc bag with the tree leaves in it. “I need this tested.”
He chuckled. “I see you didn’t work narcotics.”
“But can you tell me its genetic makeup?”
“Get outta here. You want the lab to do DNA analysis on some friggin leaves?”
“You got it. If I’m lucky, I’ll find some matching leaves. It’ll be our job to find out how close they match.”
#
THE HOME ON OLD MIDDLEBERG ROAD was mid-1960s, ranch-style, in need of paint. The yard was brown from lack of rain or irrigation. Dandelions grew like lettuce in places. A seven-year-old Honda Civic sat in the open carport.
I turned off my cell phone and knocked. There was no sound. The second time I knocked louder. I heard a woman talking to herself. Maybe to herself. I could tell someone was standing behind the door. I said, “Sandra, can I speak with you.”
Silence.
“Sandra, I hope you remember me. I drove up from—”
The door opened to the length of the chain lock. I could see a pasty face, cheeks sunken, dark circles under the eyes. I could smell the raw alcohol. In a tired voice, the woman said, “I remember you. Why are you here?”
“Just to talk a few minutes. May I come in?”
She said nothing for a beat, then slid the chain lock off and opened the door. The living room was dark. In one corner was a small television. It was turned on but the volume was off. The house smelled of Scotchguard and cigarettes.
I sat on the sofa, and Sandra sat in a worn chair opposite me. Her hair was dull, the brown now peppered in streaks of gray, deep-set creases around the edge of her down-turned mouth. “How have you been?” I asked.
“Like anybody, I’ve had ups and downs.”
“I remember your mother during the investigation. How is she?”
“Mother’s dead, Detective O’Brien. Cancer. Started in her ovaries and moved like wildfire. Nothing they could do. This is Mama’s house. I lived here as a kid. Moved back in for a while after the…after the rape. I was actually married for two years. I had good and bad days. After a miscarriage, what was left sort of fell apart.” She inhaled deeply and I could hear a slight rasp in her lungs. “Why are you here? Did you finally catch him or did somebody kill him?”
“Neither.”
She glanced away, her attention now somewhere else, maybe four years ago, but gone from the room. “Sandra, I think he’s back.”
She looked at me like she had noticed a painting on the wall was a little off center. I almost expected her to reach out to touch my face. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are the only person who can identify him.”
“I’ve tried for years not to remember him.”
“He’s never stopped killing. Went from Miami to rural farms. Killing young women. And he’ll keep on until he’s caught or stopped.”
“If you find him, Detective O’Brien, are you going to arrest him or kill him?”
“I have to find him first.”
“That’s not a good answer.”
“I can’t arrest him.”
“Why?”
“I’m not a detective anymore.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I made someone a promise, and I’m trying to stop what I couldn’t stop four years ago. What can you remember about him?”
“Nothing more than what I told you then.”
“Sometimes people remember things that were buried.”
She looked at the silent glow from the TV. “His eyes were different. Strange eyes. Almost like a cat, but I told you that. I was so glad when Mama’s cat finally died. I couldn’t look the damn cat in the eye.”
“What color were the cat’s eyes?”
“Mustard-yellowish gold, a greenish tint and little flecks of brown in them. Kind of a wild hazel.” She got up and took a photograph off the bookshelf. “Here.” She handed the picture to me. “That’s the color.”
The photo had been taken close-up with a good camera and lens. It was a picture of Sandra’s mother holding a large cat in her lap. I looked into the mesmerizing eyes of a cat that seemed to stare back at me.
“Thanks for your time, Sandra.” I got up to leave.
“Detective…”
I turned around and she said, “His voice…”
“What about it?”
“He spoke in a monotone kind of whisper. Never shouted. Just total control. His voice made you listen to it. Sometimes I still hear it.”
FIFTY-THREE
More than two hours into the drive back to the marina, I remembered that I’d shut off my cell phone before I met with Sandra. I saw that I had three missed calls. The first two were from Leslie. I didn’t recognize the third number. I played my voice-mail.
“Sean, I talked with Irena Cliff,” Leslie began. “The poor woman called Robin a sweet child, her ‘happy baby.’ She asked me to bring her back home. Then she spoke about her in the past tense, like she suspects her daughter isn’t coming back. Said Robin stopped calling, which is a red flag because she always called, at least twice a week.”
I punched the phone’s speaker button, glanced in my rearview mirror, and continued listening to Leslie’s message.
“No other immediate family. Father dead. No siblings.” She paused and sighed. “We, of course, have no body. If it’s Slater, he knows damn well how to cover his tracks. The club in Miami where Robin worked before coming to Daytona, it’s called Xanadu. The mother said her daughter, Robin, was terrified of her ex-boss, guy named Santana, Miguel Santana. She told her mother this guy raped her the day he fired her. She got out of town and took a job far enough away where she felt like she was out of this Santana’s business circle. Robin told her mother that she was scared. When she was with Tony Martin, one night when he had too much to drink, he’d confided in her, telling her that Santana was trying to cut in on Martin’s action. Said this Santana even wanted to buy Club Platinum. Martin refused. Robin was afraid Santana would retaliate for something she did while working for him. She wasn’t specific with her mother, but Robin told her that she thought Santana was dealing in everything from drugs to prostitution at a high level. Santana and Xanadu, sound like real winners. Later, Sean, ‘bye.”
I remembered the club. Catered to high rollers, sports figures, rock stars, B-list actors, and businessmen with nondisclosure expense accounts. I hit the speed dial, and Ron answered on the first ring. I filled him in on my interview with Sandra Duperre.
He said, “You’d think, after all this time, she’d reclaim a life.”
“She did, for a while, but these wounds seem to get the stitches popped at all the wrong times. What can you tell me about Club Xanadu and a guy that runs the place, Miguel Santana?”
“One of the managers and a bartender were busted for trafficking in cocaine and prostitution. These guys are like cockroaches. I heard the owner, Santana, is mostly an absentee proprietor. Doesn’t get his hands dirty.”
“Maybe he’s got a speck of dirt under his fingernails that he just can’t wash way.”
“Sounds like you’re back, pal.”
“No, but I’ll be back in Miami.” I heard the beep of an incoming call. “Ron, I need to take this. See you in a couple of days.” I pressed the button and said, “Hi, I got your voice-mail. It looks like the mother’s instinct is corroborating your gut feeling.”
Leslie said, “Unfortunately, but without a body we only have a missing person, although this missing person was involved with a club owner who was murdered.”
I told Leslie about the sycamore leaves I’d left with Dan for testing, my Jacksonville trip, and my pending Miami trip.
She said, “I got a voice-mail call from the M.E. He has a prelim tox report waiting for me on the latest vic’s hair. He found blood, a trace amount, on a single strand from the back of the head. His message said the blood didn’t come from the vic.”
#
THE S
UN WAS SETTING when I pulled the Jeep into the marina parking lot. I unloaded groceries and started for Jupiter. Nick’s boat was back in the slip. I could see him using a hose with a high-pressure nozzle to wash down the St. Michaels. When I approached, he looked my way, grinning. “Got some beer in those bags?”
“I do.”
Inside the cockpit I switched on the air conditioner, tossed the perishables in the refrigerator while Nick plopped at the bar. I found a lime, sliced it, put a slice inside the two bottles of beer, and set one in front of Nick. “Welcome back. How’d you do?”
“We did good, man. Mackerel were running. Sold three hundred pounds. I’ll keep back some for the grill.”
“Good to see you, Nick. It’s been a little tense here.”
“I heard on the TV about this last dead girl. Is that part of the crazy shit you’re in?”
“It looks that way.”
Nick tilted up the bottle and took three long swallows. “You don’t need that. Somebody gotta feed this crazy shit to the crabs.”
“Let’s hope you get called for jury duty.”
“They don’t want me on the jury. I find them all guilty. Where’s hot dog?”
“Home, back on the river. My neighbor is watching her and the place. I’ve got to go to Miami for a couple of days. Could you keep an eye on my boat?”
“Sure, man. Anybody come near it, I’ll shoot ‘em!” He laughed
“Be careful. These people shoot back.”
#
AN HOUR AND A SIX-PACK later, Nick had gone back to his boat to shower and get ready to meet his latest girlfriend. I’d stripped down to my shorts and was about to climb in the shower when Leslie called. “Are you ready for this?”
I never like conversations that start that way. “What do you have?”
“The tox report on the blood has me scratching my head.”
“What’s it say?
“Says the blood came from an alligator. An alligator certainly didn’t slice her up unless the gator had training in surgery. So where would the vic have been to get alligator blood in her hair?”
“Could be a wild card, but I have a possibility.”
“Can you tell me about it over dinner, maybe in an hour? I’d like to rinse some of the past twelve hours off me.”
“See you then.”
I started to hang up when I heard her say, “Sean, I missed you today. And please don’t take that the wrong way. I just really enjoy your company.”
“Then your expectations aren’t very high.”
I could almost see her smile through the phone. She laughed. “When this whole thing is over, maybe we can go away together for a long weekend. Let’s find a place where there are lots of tropical flowers, a turquoise sea, and gentle people with genuine smiles. Do you know a place like that?”
“I know a place like that.”
FIFTY-FOUR
At eight o’clock I called the Blue Heron to cancel the dinner reservation. I was told that I wouldn’t need reservations after nine and they served until ten p.m.
I tried Leslie’s cell for the third time in two hours. The first two times I got her voice-mail. The last try there was a clicking noise like the phone had been disconnected.
I locked Jupiter and started walking to my Jeep. The tiki bar was filled with people and song. As I walked by, I could see the sole entertainer, dressed in white island cottons and wearing a hat that looked like a mix between a fedora and an Australian bush hat. He was crooning the Jack Johnson song, “Crying Shame.”
Nick was at the bar with a woman. He got off his stool and waved me inside. “Sean, this is Margarita.”
She smiled and said, “Nice to meet you.” She looked like she was imported from Colombia. Exotic. Dark skin, high cheekbones, and full lips.
“Good to meet you, too.”
“Sean, I drank all your beer today. Let me repay you.” He turned towards a bartender. “Corona for my friend.”
“Nick, I can’t stay. I want to give you a number.” I wrote a phone number down on a bar napkin. “Call him if I don’t make it back tonight. His name’s Dan Gant. He’s a detective with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Man, you need some help? What’s going on?”
“If my Jeep’s gone all night. Call him. Tell him I went to Leslie’s house, I left at 10:30 tonight, and tell him to go there.”
As I walked toward the door, Dave Collins entered. He grinned and said, “Care to join me for coffee? I’ve been thinking about your predicament, your quest, perhaps.”
“I’m meeting Leslie for diner.”
“It’s getting a little late for dinner.”
“I know. She’s not answering her cell, which is not like her.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Dave’s voice had a sense of urgency I hadn’t heard in a while. “If the same guy is now killing people for organs, maybe this is part of a larger, much more frightening enterprise that is far beyond the scope of your average serial killer, beyond your talk-show tabloid murderer. He’s got issues that will add a chapter to criminal psychology books.”
“Maybe we’re coming to the same conclusion.”
“What would poison a human mind so much it would make a man rape, kill, and then butcher?”
I said nothing, thinking about Leslie.
Dave continued. “Someone is having his way with a frightened group of people with little or no voice, but it seems deeper than that, like he’s flaunting these killings in someone’s face. Why? If Richard Brennen is a serial killer is it because he hates a larger-than-life domineering father so much he’s killing their workers.”
“You’re giving me something to think about as I hunt for Leslie.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
I wanted very much to believe him.
#
I DROVE UP AIA, past Daytona Beach Shores and the high-rise condos. My Jeep was engulfed in a roar of a dozen bikers passing me on both sides. I turned left on Main Street, drove past Boothill Saloon and a dozen other biker bars and strip joints. As I passed the Club Platinum, I thought about what Robin Eastman’s mother had told Leslie, ‘she was my happy baby.’
Driving west towards Leslie’s subdivision, half dozen emergency vehicles passed me, including two Volusia County sheriff’s cars, a Daytona Beach police cruiser, a fire department EMT ambulance, and another county ambulance. I was hoping I wouldn’t drive up into the chaos of a multi-car accident scattered across an intersection.
I was still a couple of miles away from Leslie’s house when an uneasy feeling hit my stomach, like I’d gone over a hill too fast. What if she was in a car accident?
Maybe she’d left the ME’s office, stopped by her office, and left her phone in the car. What if the emergency vehicles were rushing to her house?
I tried her cell again. Nothing but a disconnect sound. It was the most desolate sound I’d heard in a long time. I drove faster. Sped in the direction of sirens. It was the direction that sounded alarm bells in my head. It congealed fear in my heart, knocking on the door of a dark place I was afraid to open again.
FIFTY-FIVE
Turning the street corner, I could see the hue of pulsating blue lights above the tree line. Bastard!
I raced down Leslie’s street, taking out a large plastic garbage can near the curb. At the end of the cul-de-sac, all hell was breaking loose. Dozens of police and emergency vehicles were parked. Blue, white, and red emergency lights whirled and flashed sending an eerie color spectrum across yards, houses, and trees. The blur of lights and wide-eyed stares were like a slow-motion parade of the arcane.
Neighbors, some in bathrobes, stood in the shadows pointing and whispering. I gunned the Jeep and pulled to a stop on the sidewalk near Leslie’s front yard. I jumped out and ran through the bystanders, emergency crews, the crackle of police radios, TV reporters rehearsing lines before live shots, finally reaching the crime scene tape like a marathon runner.
A uniform stopped talking into the ra
dio microphone on his shoulder and barked, “You can’t go in there!
I ignored him and ran to the front porch just as the body was coming out. Two grim-faced members of the coroner’s staff pushed a gurney with a white sheet over it. I could see a blood stain about the size of a quarter on the sheet in the head area.
“Leslie!” I shouted, my voice sounding strange, like foreign language coming out of my throat. Please God…
“Stand back, sir!” an EMT ordered. “Out of the way!”
Two strong hands clamped down on my shoulders, pulling me backwards.
“This is a crime scene! Stay outta the house!” one square-jawed officer yelled.
“Take your hands off me!” Blue uniforms charging.
“Put the cuffs on him!” ordered an officer.
Dan Grant stepped from inside the house. “It’s all right! Let him go.”
The officers released my arms. Dan frowned and motioned for me to follow him. We walked a few feet away from the porch, near a flower garden Leslie had planted. Dan’s eyes were wet, tearing. “Sean…she’s gone.”
My stomach burned, the taste of rage raising though my esophagus like a sulfurous gas. I stared at the roses in her garden and pictured her face, heard her laugh, and felt my eyes moisten. “What happened?”
“Shot once in the head. Professional hit. No sign of entry anywhere. Nothing broken. Looks like she was going out the door and was surprised. Somebody was waiting in the bushes for her. Probably stuck the gun in her face and backed her into the foyer. That’s where the body was found. She had her car keys in her hand.”
“She was coming to meet me for dinner. No answer on her cell.”
“Whoever killed her stomped on her cell. Crushed it right next to the body.”
I said nothing.
Dan looked towards the coroner’s van. “Can’t believe she’s gone...” He paused to compose himself. “I was just talking with her earlier. She told me a joke she heard on talk radio. She filled me in on the questioning of the mother in Tampa. She told me about your trip to Jacksonville, and the Miami connection, this guy called Santana who may have put out a hit on club owner Tony Martin.” He exhaled pent up air. “Who’d do this, Sean? Hit Leslie? Why? The perp didn’t even take the time or initiative to make it look like a forced burglary. Nothing seems out of place.”
