A False Dawn (30 page)

EIGHTY-TWO

Nick’s voice sounded like a dream.  “He’s awaking up!” I heard him say.  “Sean, about time you stopped sleeping.”

I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, looked at the tubes running into my arms, the digital graphics monitoring my heart, and I glanced at the foot of the bed.  Nick stood next to Dave, and both had big grins on their faces. 

I said, “So, where’s the tin man?”  My voice sounded like it came from Oz.

“If that’s Dan Grant, the detective,” Dave said, “he’ll be back.”

“How you feelin’ Sean?” Nick asked.

“Better than the last time I looked.  How long have I been in here?”

Dave crossed his arms.  “Three days.  You were in IC for the first day.  Lots of blood loss.  When the EMTs got there, they said you looked like your body had gone into some kind of hibernation, sort of like those wood frogs we were talking about.  Looks like your system had shut down, somehow, before it could bleed out.  Santana did a number on your lower extremities.”

“Don’t tell me…”

“You’re okay there, old friend, but he tried to rearrange your intestinal tract.”

“How bad?”

“It’s all stuffed back in there.  Surgeons sewed you up in a lot of places internally.  Flooded you with a few liters of bacteria-killing agents.  You ought to have one hell of an aftertaste in your mouth until that bleach gets out of your system.  The docs checked for polyps while they were in there.  Clean as a whistle.”  He laughed.

“Where’s Max?  Is she okay?”

“Fine,” Dave said.  “Vet put some stitches in her.  She’s waiting for you.” 

Nick grinned.  “I take her swimmin’ when you get all well.  I know she’s a hot dog but she think’s like a lab.”  He laughed and then his face became creased with concern.  “What happened, Sean?  Where’s the bad guy, Santana?  Did he get away?”

Dan entered the room.  I could tell he was worried.  “Sean, it’s good to see you awake.  How’re you feeling?”

“Considering the circumstances, I’d say okay.”

He smiled.  “Must have been one hell of a fight.  Lauren Miles called us when she heard Santana was heading for you.  We found the rental car near your house.  A patrol unit picked up a kid who said some ‘crazy white dude’ pulled a gun on him and made him walk away from the car.”

“That wouldn’t have been you, would it, Sean?”

“My memory is a little hazy.”

“Don’t see how Santana got near your place if he didn’t come by car.”

“Came by boat.”

“That how he got away?  Using a damn boat?”

“He didn’t get away.”

“He didn’t?  There wasn’t a body, but we did find drops of his blood on your dock.  It was within six feet of the blood from you and your dog.  So what the hell happened to Santana?”

“Best I can remember, he seemed to have lost his balance on the dock, fell in and couldn’t swim very well.  Then he got in the mouth of a big gator.”

“Sean,” Dan sighed.  “We found blood all over your porch, a big damn spearhead covered in blood.  On the dock, we found a bow lying next to you and your dog.  Looks like you had some kind of Custer’s Last Stand going on, a one-man war against Santana.  Did you shoot him with an arrow?”

“I was shot in the gut.  How could I pull back a sixty pound bow?”

“So, for the record, since we may never recover a body, Santana shot you, you hit him with your spearhead, he lost his balance, fell in the river, and was eaten by a gator.”

“It’s all kind of a blur after I was shot.”

Dan closed his note pad. “I’ll just get a statement on tape.  You took out the most prolific serial killer since the Green River Killer.”

We talked about all the multiple investigations into the murders.  A half dozen agencies, including the FBI, INS, Border Patrol, FDLE, the sheriff’s departments from three separate counties in Florida, two in Texas, and one in Los Angeles, were sharing notes, files and extradition proceedings.  In addition to the arrests of Silas Davis and Hector Ortega, others that worked for them were arrested and charged with dozens of counts, including trafficking in human beings, slavery, prostitution, and murder.

Nick was late for a date with a schoolteacher whom he’d been eyeing since she moved into the new condos across the street from the marina.

After they were gone, Dave looked at the wires, tubes, and bandages holding my body together.  He lowered his voice.  “You could have died, you know that?

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s very noble to offer yourself as the bait, but not smart, especially with someone like Santana.  You should have had backup right there at the house with you.”

“I did.  Max bit his ankle.”

Dave grinned, his week’s worth of stubble was a bluish gray from the lights of the monitors.  His eyes were red-rimmed, heavy, dark circles from worry and lack of sleep.  “Sean, is he dead?  Is all that about the gator true or is it some metaphor you’re using to explain maybe something that’s unexplainable.”

“What do you mean?”

“Santana resurfaced once before, could he do it again?”

“Not this time.  His evil will resurface, but his body won’t rise up again.”

Dave nodded as a nurse entered.  She was in her fifties, hair beginning to gray, lines on her face traceable to compassion, to her heart.  “Are you hungry?”

“I could use something to get the taste of a nuclear meltdown out of my mouth.”

She laughed, “I’ll see if I can find a good meal for you.”  As she took my pulse, she looked at my hands.  “You still have a little of that dirt under a couple of fingernails.  Thought I got it all out.  Hands were filthy when they brought you in.”

“I guess I had some blood on them.”

“Yes, you did.  You also had something else on them.”

“What?”

“The same stuff that was in the wound on your stomach.  Mud!  Some kind of dark mud.  Lucky that didn’t kill you!  Who in their right mind would risk infecting a wound with mud?”

EPILOGUE

They’d wrapped it in newspaper.  I took it out of my Jeep, careful not to drop it on the parking lot.  It had been a month since I was out of the hospital, but lifting the weight of the headstone, I could feel the beaded scar on my gut pull a little.  

Max followed at my heels, sniffing the ground as we walked to the gravesite.   The morning sun was edging above a tree line to the far right of the county cemetery.  The grounds smelled of fresh cut grass, crushed acorns, and wet dirt.  

The grave marker, county-issued, was a small white cross with a seven-digit number on it.  I pulled it out of the ground.  Then I unwrapped the newspaper and set the headstone on her grave.  It read:

Angela Ramirez

1992 – 2010

I stood there minute longer, said a silent prayer, and made the sign of the cross.  Then I heard a bird start to sing.  A cardinal, its feathers like that of a ripe strawberry, jumped between branches on the lone oak, singing.  Its voice sounded like a flute warbling in the wind, its head and shoulders moving side to side with the swagger of a rock singer.

I smiled and said, “Sing on bird…sing on.”

I picked up the discarded grave marker, the newspapers, and turned to Max.  “Let’s go, Max.  We have some sailing to get to.”

#

I RENTED THE 42 BENETEAU
from a bareboat charter company out of Key Largo.  I’d brought enough groceries and ice to last for two weeks, that’s if I wanted to stay out that long.  I thought about sailing over to Bimini, find a quiet cove, listen to good music, catch a lot of fish, and simply do a lot of nothing.  Then, again, I might sail down beyond Key West to Fort Jefferson and spend some time where the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf became one sea.

But there was a place I wanted to visit first. 

Once clear of the marina, I wanted to turn off the Perkins diesel, open the spinnaker, and hoist the mainsail, but I kept her under motor for a few miles.  I punched the coordinates into the GPS and followed the satellite toward the place where I had said goodbye to Sherri.  Max hopped from one seat to another in the cockpit, barking at the soaring pelicans, and enjoying the movement of the boat.  

After a half hour, I went below and opened the refrigerator, taking out the long stem red rose I’d brought aboard.  Back in the cockpit, I checked the coordinates.  I was within one hundred feet of where I’d released Sherri’s ashes into the sea.  I cut the diesel, stepped to the bowsprit and stood there for a moment. 

“I miss you.  Max misses you.”  I tossed the rose into the ocean.  It floated on the surface and began to drift away in the current.  I watched it until the red bloom was a dot on the horizon.

Then I raised the sails.  But there was a dead calm.  No breeze.  Not even the clouds seemed to move, and little Max was still.  “Well, Max, what do you think?  We were going to do some sailing down toward Fort Jefferson or over to Bimini.  Thought I’d let the wind decide.  Maybe it has.  Maybe we ought to be back home, take
Jupiter
out and catch some fish if we can’t catch some wind.”

Suddenly, out of the west, a breeze started, picked up, and kicked with a strong gust.  “Max, looks like we’re heading to Bimini!”

I made my way back to the cockpit.  I stood behind the wheel, the wind steady, the sails expanding, leading the boat toward the east.  I reset the GPS for Buccaneer Point on Bimini.  In less than thirty seconds we were doing ten knots.

I reached down into the ice in the cooler and retrieved a Corona.  I turned to Max. “All right, first mate, we’re heading across some blue water to an island I visited a few yeas ago.  Enjoy!”

We had the sun to our backs, and the islands somewhere over the horizon.  Max quickly became used to the movements of the boat.  She made it all the way up to the bowsprit, adjusting her balance by spreading her front and hind legs a little farther apart.  She watched the spray off the bow and sniffed the salty air.

I listened to the boat cut through the water, felt the wind on my face, sipped the beer, put a Jack Johnson CD in the player, sat down, and steered the wheel with my toes.  It felt good to be sailing again.  I’d forgotten how much I’d missed it.     

Max started to walk back to the cockpit when something caught her eye.  Two porpoises loped alongside the boat easily keeping up with us.  Max barked and scurried around the boat keeping her eyes on the strange creatures.  They swam less than twenty feet off the starboard side.

I remembered Sherri saying, “
I love it when they join us.  I believe it’s the same pair we saw yesterday.”

“How can you tell?”

“Their attitude.   Maybe it’s those smiles.   I don’t know.  But they seem to want to travel with us.”

These two did travel with Max and me for another two miles and then left us.  They left us with their attitude, their smiles, and their sense of adventure.

“Keep an eye out for pirates!” I yelled to Max.  “That’s the mate’s job, growl at ‘em.”

She turned and looked at me, her face animated in a swashbuckling dachshund kind of way.  I grinned, watching Max stand near the bowsprit, her ears flapping in the breeze, her wet nose sniffing the trade winds.

Maybe I didn’t need the GPS.  I had my little watchdog to point the way.

###

We hope you have enjoyed the first novel in the Sean O'Brien series.  The following is an excerpt from the second book in the series,

The 24th Letter.

ONE

U.S. Marshal Deputy Bill Fisher had never done it before, and after that morning he swore to God he’d never do it again.  Never had he let a prisoner have a cigarette before entering a courthouse to testify.  Sam Spelling, though, had been cooperative and polite on the long ride from Florida State Prison to the U.S. district court in Orlando.  And they were early.  The news media were on the other side of the building, out front.  Maybe, thought Deputy Fisher, it wouldn’t hurt if Spelling smoked half a cigarette.

Spelling was to be the star witness in the government’s case against a bank robber turned cocaine trafficker.  Since Spelling was helping the government, at a possible risk to himself, what harm could a quick cigarette do? 
Might calm the boy down, help his testimony
.  Marshal Fisher and a second marshal escorted Spelling up the worn steps leading to the courthouse’s back entrance.

At the top of the steps, Spelling looked around, eyes searching the adjacent alley, the delivery trucks and sheriff’s cars parked along the perimeter.  His dark hair gelled and combed straight back.  Two white scars ran jagged above his left eyebrow like lighting bolts—leftovers from a diet of violence.  He had a haggard, bird-like face, beak nose with feral eyes, red-rimmed, and irises the shade of blue turquoise.  He squinted in the morning sun and said, “I’d really appreciate that smoke, sir.  Just a quick one to relax my nerves.  I gotta go in there and say things that are gonna send Larry to where I am for a hellava long time.  State’s promised me he’ll go to some other prison.  If he don’t, it’ll be a matter of time before he shanks me, or has somebody do it.  Right now a smoke would make my time in the witness stand a whole lot easier.”

THE RIFLE'S CROSSHAIRS SWEPT
up Sam Spelling’s back as he reached the top step.  The sniper looked through the scope.  Patient.  Waiting for the right second.  He knew the .303 would make an entrance hole no larger than the width of a child’s pencil on the back of Spelling’s head.  The exit wound would plaster Spelling’s face into mortar supporting the century-old granite blocks.

At the rear entrance to the courthouse, the shooter didn’t anticipate Spelling turning around at the top of the steps. 
Much better
.  He breathed easy, slowing his heartbeat.  Now he could put one between the eyes.  Through the powerful scope, he saw the flame of a cigarette lighter.  Magnified, it looked like a tiny fire in the marshal’s hand.  He watched as Spelling used both his cuffed hands to hold the cigarette, bluish-white smoke drifting in the crosshairs.  Spelling took a deep drag off the cigarette.  The sniper started to squeeze the trigger. 

Then Spelling nodded and coughed, turning his head, stepping backward.

He lowered the crosshairs to Spelling’s chest and pulled the trigger.

Sam Spelling fell like a disjointed string-puppet.  The gunshot sprayed tissue, bits of lung and muscle against the courthouse wall.  Blood trickled in a finger pattern down the white granite, leaving a crimson trail that glistened in the morning sun.