Mute (12 page)

“Excuse me. Mariella is perfectly healthy. I
haven’t found a spot on her,” Moni said. She clenched her hands in her lap so
the officers wouldn’t see them trembling.

That lie didn’t comfort her at all. The bacteria
could still live inside the girl—dissolving her guts slowly like a Popsicle
melting on the table.

Hoping that her eye for men had led her to someone
trustworthy for once, Moni penned a note in her lap that read, “Call me
tonight,” followed by her phone number. While the officers and the scientists
argued over what to tell the public about the bacteria threat, Moni passed the
note across the table to Aaron. With the sleight of hand of someone who had
passed many notes in his school days, he plucked it off the table and opened
it. His face lit up with a grin full of perfect teeth—no gold caps like Darren.

By the way he flapped his eyebrows at her Aaron
probably thought that she made the first move because she wanted him then and
there. She really wanted him to check Mariella for the bacteria on the down
low, but Moni didn’t consider the invite leading him on as long as she could see
a hookup going down. She just didn’t plan on it that night.

The meeting finally broke up after the lady from
the Water Management District agreed she’d put out a bulletin warning people
that they shouldn’t swim in the lagoon or eat anything from the lagoon until
the bacteria clears up. The announcement wouldn’t connect the bacteria to the
murders because Sneed didn’t want to let the killer know how they’re catching
his scent. He said an overconfident suspect would be more likely to make
mistakes.

Brig. Gen. Colon had his own words for Sneed, but
no one else could hear them because the military man whispered them in the lead
detective’s ear. Sneed nodded. Moni couldn’t read his stoic expression. Judging
by the giddy-up in his step on the way out the door, Colon had heard something
in that meeting that rocked his world.

 
* * * *

The dreaded ring buzzed her cell phone as Moni
strolled back to her office. Her mind overstuffed with worry about everything
she had heard during the meeting, Moni answered just before her voicemail stole
it away.

Checking the caller ID this time, she saw:
Challenger 7 Elementary
.

“Hello,
Mrs. Mint?” Moni asked.

“Hi,
Detective Williams,” the teacher answered. “I hate bothering you. I know you’re
working hard solving this case.” Moni made a guilty shrug that thankfully the
teacher couldn’t see. “A little something happened today. It’s really minor,
but I figured you should know.”

The teacher did such a good job of downplaying it
that Moni’s heart skipped a beat. She thought of the vengeful Buckley twins
cornering Mariella and pelting her with rocks until blood streaked down her
smooth black hair.

It turned out that Mariella hadn’t gotten hurt, but
the ramifications of the incident unhinged Moni even more. Mrs. Mint said the
school security officer saw a blue pickup truck circle the school at least five
times during the day. The driver was a white male with a black Marlins baseball
cap and dark glasses. While Mariella stood quietly by herself during recess,
the truck parked on a lawn across the street from the fence. When the officer
thought he saw the driver peering at the kids through a pair of binoculars, he
marched toward the truck. It took off and hasn’t returned—so far.

“Did the officer get a photo? A tag number?” Moni
asked the teacher.

“He didn’t get close enough,” Mrs. Mint said. “But
I wouldn’t worry. There’s a fence around the school and we’ve got cameras all
over the place. Kids don’t wander off and strangers don’t wander in.”

They weren’t dealing with an anonymous stranger, Moni
thought. The person stalking Mariella wasn’t a cowardly child snatcher. He was
a remorseless killer with a thirst for her young blood and organs. The moment
everybody forgets about the little girl that doesn’t speak and tries so hard to
be invisible, that’s the instant the killer will glide in between the shadows
and slice off Mariella’s head.

Quivering like a tuning fork, Moni’s hand nearly
dropped her phone.

“I’m on my way over.”

“But we’ve still got 80 minutes to go,” Mrs. Mint
said. “You don’t have to pick her up earl…”

“I’m coming—now.”

Chapter 10

Moni woke up in her pitch black room to the ringing
of her cell phone. The time flashed four-thirty in the morning. Before
answering, she rolled underneath the blanket and peeked through the window shades
with an aggravated moan. She didn’t see Darren waiting outside her window for
his booty call or her father crouching there demanding money. As her eyes came
into focus, Moni saw the empty road under the dim street lights.

She turned her sleep-blurred vision on her phone.
Oh joy: Tom Sneed.

“Mm, hello?” she answered drearily.

“What do ya know? We’ve got another body,” Sneed
said in a tone dripping with blame. “Found him floating in the lagoon. Same as
the others, save a bite taken off his arm.”

Moni ran her fingers through her tousled braids.
Grabbing a handful of them, she yanked so hard that she nearly ripped them out
by the roots. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream, because that would have
reached the other side of the house and jolted Mariella awake. The girl didn’t
need any more drama today.

Moni realized that this attitude—protecting
Mariella at every step—left the killer free so he could slice another person’s
head off his body. Moni couldn’t manage a reply more intelligible than a
whimper before Sneed hit her again.

“There’s a witness this time,” he said. “It’s the
victim’s brother. I don’t think he saw the murder take place. His story, well,
the Coast Guard relayed it to me. This ain’t the kinda case you learn about in
the police academy, that’s for damn sure. Come on in the office and let’s grill
him together. I wanna see how you handle a witness that can actually talk.”

Moni wasn’t sure whether he meant that as an offer
to her for a permanent spot on his homicide team or a dig at Mariella’s silence.
Either way, she couldn’t leave the girl home alone in the middle of the night,
and Sneed knew it.

“I’ll drop Mariella off at school at seven-thirty
and be there first thing,” Moni said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He hung up.

Mariella acted more clingy than usual that morning.
She insisted on sitting on Moni’s lap at breakfast and sharing the food on her
plate. She hadn’t told Mariella about the potential stalker in the blue pickup
or the sixth murder in the lagoon. Moni did a poor job masking the distressed
look on her face and her hectic movements that nearly knocked the coffee mug
right off the counter. The girl picked up on it rather easily. Moni couldn’t
tell whether Mariella stayed close because the child needed comfort, or because
the child detected that her foster parent needed a tiny shoulder to lean on.

When she dropped Mariella off at school, the girl
followed her halfway back to her car before Moni realized it. She led her back
to class.

“It’s okay, baby,” Moni told her. “I’ll speak to the
security officer and make sure everything is safe here. If you need me, ask
Mrs. Mint and she’ll give me a call.”

She kissed the girl on the forehead. Mariella shot
her one more glance before she entered the classroom. Mariella looked
remorseful—like she felt responsible for the bloodshed because she couldn’t
stop that monster from killing her parents.

Moni propped the door open and took the girl’s
hand.

“What’s happening isn’t your fault, Mariella. When
I was a young girl, I used to blame myself for my father beating me and hurting
my mother. I thought that if I was a better kid, he would stop and become like
all the other fathers. He never did… you’re a victim like me. Don’t be
ashamed.”

Sharing her deepest darkest secret with the
eight-year-old girl untied the knot in Moni’s heartstrings. The child embraced
her.

Moni needed all the love she could get. The rest of
the day would drain just about every ounce of it out of her.

Chapter 11

Randy Cooper looked more like a criminal than a
witness to Moni, but he sat in the witness chair without handcuffs just the
same. He had yellow-brown eyes that seemed as hyped up as a cheetah’s before it
springs in for the kill.

This was one wounded cat. Cooper’s neck glowed raw
red with a matted pattern like someone had nearly strangled him with several
pieces of wire. One of the red grooves cut through the cursive tattoo of “Don’t
Treat on Me” on his neck. His arms were dotted with tats, including a drooling
bulldog, a rabbit’s foot and a snake around his wrist. His right hand had a
heavy white bandage wrapped around it.

He even smelled like a zoo, or more like a
saltwater aquarium. His black t-shirt and camouflage pants stunk of the lagoon.
They were stiff with salt after drying from the middle of the night until
morning.

Sneed hadn’t let Randy Cooper change a thing, from
his dirty-blond buzz cut to his hunting boots, since the Lagoon Watcher had
fished him out of the water and handed him over to the Coast Guard. That much
of the story, they knew. The rest, Randy would have to recount.

Even for a seasoned hunter who worked in an outdoor
shop and blasted bucks’ heads off, telling this hunting tale didn’t come easy.

“Aw, Robbie. He was my brother, man. He was my
brother.” Randy shook his head and bit his lip. He wouldn’t let himself cry,
not in front of police, but Moni recognized the red circles around his eyes as
evidence that he had let the tears flow in private.

Randy sucked the moisture out of his sinuses and
wiped his nose.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he told Sneed. “I wanna help you.
I really do. I’m afraid you won’t believe this shit.”

Sneed told Moni before the interview that they
should take Randy’s words with a grain of salt. He had a couple of DUI’s and an
illegal hunting fine on his record.

“You just tell me what happened,” Sneed said. “All
we wanna do is catch the guy who deprived you of your brother.”

“I didn’t say it was a guy… I think it was a gator.
That’s what started it, at least. But what finished it, hell… I couldn’t
imagine.”

Moni and Sneed traded looks of disappointment. She
felt it much worse. Mariella remained the only witness who had probably seen
the murderer in action. She still had the biggest target on her.

Not to say that Randy hadn’t seen enough carnage to
send an experienced hunter into a padded room.

“I got home from a fishing trip and left my skiff
in the canal behind my house,” said Randy, who lived in Palm Bay. “I went
inside, grabbed a beer and when I went out back fix’n to lift it outta there, I
saw a gator making off with my boat.”

“Hold up, son. Do you mean to tell me that a gator—a
reptile dragging its belly—stole your boat?” Sneed asked.

“That’s what I fucking said, alright.” Randy wiped
his eyes and took a deep breath. Sneed nodded him on. “I saw this beastly
thing, must have been a nine-footer, chomp off the tether and drag my boat down
the canal. I followed it on foot for miles all the way to the lagoon. That’s
when I called Robbie.”

“Your older brother, Robert D. Cooper?” Moni asked.

“Yeah, Robbie. He has—he left behind a wife and a
four-year-old boy.” With his lower lip quivering, he paused while those words
resonated. Randy crossed his arms and stared at the floor. “He had a family. He
had a damn good job as a computer tech. Robbie had it all. I shouldn’t have
brought him into my troubles.”

“They aren’t just your troubles. It’s everybody’s
beef now ‘cause we’ve got a killer running loose,” Sneed said. “So your brother
had a boat? We didn’t find it in the water.”

“You won’t find it no more.” He bowed his head for
a few seconds. “But, he had it. You can check on it, man. Robbie had a pontoon
boat—an 18-foot booze cruiser. He kept it docked behind his home on the lagoon
side of Indialantic. He used to take his wife and boy out on it. It wasn’t
supposed to be for hunting. But I needed it to nab me that gator and get my
boat back. I knocked on Robbie’s window ‘round one in the morning. I tell ya,
he nearly blew my head off with a shotgun.”

“Is that how you brothers usually greet each
other?” asked Moni, who figured the gator story could be cover for a brotherly
fight that ended badly for Robbie.

Randy looked at her as if she had break-danced
straight out of the ghetto and met a white man for the first time. She had seen
that self-righteous bullshit more times than she cared to remember.

“No. It was late and I scared him. What’d you
think? My people ain’t thugs, lady.” He shook his head. “Anyways, my brother
told me to hit the road. I told him I was taking his boat and going after the
gator whether he came with or not. I know, I know. I played the little brother
needs help from big bro card. Call me a selfish asshole.”