A False Dawn (20 page)

FIFTY-ONE

 I awoke on the bridge to the sound of laughing gulls flying by me and the noise of a charter boat leaving.  The sun looked as if it had been up at least an hour.  I stood from the captain’s chair on legs that felt like I’d gone twelve rounds in the ring.  My left leg was numb and tingling, the blood beginning to circulate through a cramped muscle.  My joints stiff as spring flowers caught in a late snow fall.

I managed to climb down the steps to the cockpit without falling.  Stepping inside the salon, I saw a note left on the couch next to my pillow. 
Sean, had to run.  Needed to get in early before Slater arrives.  Call you later!  You looked so sweet sleeping up top, didn’t have the heart to wake you - Leslie.

I made coffee, headed for the shower, and planned to spend part of the day where the last victim was found.

#

ON THE DRIVE
to the wildlife refuge I called Ron Hamilton. “What’s the last known address of the Bagman survivor, the last attack before the perp went underground?  Didn’t she move to Jacksonville?”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll see what I have.”

 “I’ll be on my cell.  If you can’t reach me, leave a message.”

“You gonna be unreachable by cell?”

“I’ll be in a wildlife refuge.”

“That where they found the last vic, the one was opened up?”

“That’d be the place.”

“Be careful, partner.  The woods can be full of creeps.”

#

THE PRIMITIVE ROAD
into the St. Johns Wildlife Refuge was narrow.  Room for one vehicle to travel either way.   As I entered the refuge, the sunlight was diminished by the tree line.  I could smell blooming honeysuckles, pine straw, and thick grass still wet from last night’s rain.    

Within a ten-minute walk, I came to the crime scene tape that sectioned off the spot where the body was found.  I began following the furrows, going deeper into the wildlife refuge.  It was about eighty yards farther when I found the spot, I assumed, where the vehicle with the body had tried to turn around and got stuck in the mud.  Even after the rain, ruts caused by the back tires spinning were deep.  Rainwater had pooled in the bottom.  I walked past the ruts, looking on both sides for broken limbs, bark, or logs.   

I turned to head back toward the Jeep, but as I started to step over one of the ruts, the reflection of the tree line on the water caught my eye.  A large sycamore tree stood less than twenty feet away.  I reached into the dark water, my fingers feeling and sifting through small rocks, twigs, and sand.  I pulled up three leaves and looked at the sycamore tree near me.  In the dappled sunlight, I examined the leaves and wondered if there might be others, perhaps miles away, that were exact DNA matches to the muddy sycamore leaves in my hand.  Was it possible?  If so, and if I found leaves with the same plant DNA, it meant they could have come from only one place.  The same tree.      

FIFTY-TWO

In the Jeep I listened to the voice-message Ron Hamilton had left on my cell. 

“Hey, ol’ buddy, as you’re running around doing the fun stuff, I’m back here in database central.  Got a last known address for Sandra Dupree.  You might get lucky and find her in Jacksonville at 17352 Old Middleburg Road.  Phone company has no records in her name.  I figured that.  Happy hunting.”

Driving to connect with I-95 north to Jacksonville, I tried Leslie’s cell.  No answer.  Then I called her office.  A male voice answered.  “Homicide, Grant speaking.”

“Detective Grant, this is Sean O’Brien.  Is Leslie around?”

“No, she came in and made a few calls and went right back out.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”  

“Tampa.  Says she has an interview with an older woman who’ll only open up woman-to-woman.  Sort of a Barbara Walters interview.  I’m getting used to it.”

“Sometimes, when it comes to gender, especially if the interviewee is older, a one-on-one with the same sex causes a better dialogue flow.”

“Yeah, I know.  It just seems that Leslie’s moving at such a fast pace that we’re sharing more notes passing in the hall than we do in the field.  She’s been keen on your helping us in the Jane Doe cases.”

“And now I could use some help.”

“Does this mean I have a partner again?”  He laughed.  “Leslie has a lot of respect for you, but since she’s my ‘part-time’ partner…whatcha need?”

“Can we meet?”

 “When?”

“Now.”

“Give me ten minutes.  Where?”

“Parking lot of the Waffle House on Dominion.”

#

IT TOOK DAN ALMOST a half hour to get there.  He pulled up next to my Jeep, got out, and walked over to me.  “Sorry about running late.  Slater wanted to chat.”

“And he’s such a compelling conversationalist.”

“In a monosyllabic four-letter-word kind of way.  He wanted to know why I wasn’t with Leslie.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“Truth.  Told him she had an interview and I was meeting with a source.  The schedules conflicted, so she went to cover one and I did the other.  I just didn’t say she went to Tampa and I was meeting with you.”

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 SUN 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. Michael
s.  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-PA
C
K
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.”