Rivers to Blood (17 page)

“Try me.”

“I know you think I’m the one doing it, but I’m not. You made the faggot comment to try to get me to react, but it didn’t work because it isn’t me. Got no interest in any part of a man—least of all his anus.”

I nodded.

“You believe me?”

I shrugged.

“I can make you,” he said.

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

He turned his head and pulled back his collar to reveal the scar on his neck.

“I’m not the beast,” he said. “I just bear his mark.”

Chapter Thirty-six

R
achel and I were back on the river.

Bouncing between the three cases––the escape, the rapes, and the murders––was difficult, and it kept me from gaining a normal rhythm or much momentum, but there wasn’t much I could do about it––especially with my chaplaincy duties and everything I was doing being scrutinized by Matson and Singer. It was as if this entire thing was a complicated offbeat jazz piece. The key was to play it as it arose––not rush it, not drag behind, and to do so I’d have to fight frustration every step of the way. Impatience was the enemy.

Rachel had commandeered a boat from a fellow FDLE agent and was driving us toward Turtle Mason’s houseboat a lot faster than she should.

It had rained recently and the leaves shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, beneath them steam rising off the hot earth. The waters of the Apalachicola seemed clearer and greener, resembling more closely the bay and beyond it the Gulf they were flowing toward than the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers they were flowing from.

As we raced down the wide waterway, I took in the radiant river and felt myself begin to relax, the tension and turmoil in my mind and body being released and carried away, as if washed out to sea.

I took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly, surrendering to my surroundings and a more primal way of being.

Without slowing she turned toward Turtle’s and cut the engine, the boat rising on its own wake and riding it in.

Beyond the sagging crime scene tape the small porch area held several of the aquariums and croaker sacks from inside.

“They say all the snakes are out,” she said.

“Be sure to let me know,” I said.

She punched me in the arm. “I brought you for protection.”

“Why are we here again?” I asked.

“They’re towing it in today.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“I want one more look before it’s moved. No telling what evidence might be lost or destroyed when they do that.”

Lifting the crime scene tape and stepping beneath it, we climbed aboard the boat, each of us careful not to step too close to the croaker sacks.

Pulling a small knife from her pocket, she slit the crime scene tape near the handle and pushed the door open with her foot. Pocketing her knife, she withdrew two pairs of latex gloves and a small flashlight.

“You got anything else in there?” I asked, nodding toward her pocket. “Snake-proof boots? First-aid kit?”

She laughed and handed me a pair of gloves.

We snapped on the gloves and she shined the small light inside.

“Oh, that’s a big help,” I said.

Standing there side by side, I was reminded again of the difference in our height. She was nearly a foot shorter than me but it seemed like more.

“Don’t see anything moving,” she said.

“And with that light you definitely would.”

“Nobody likes a smart ass,” she said.

“I’ve always wondered what it was,” I said.

We stood there looking in for another moment.

“We ready to do this?”

“Sure,” I said, “but there’s no way they got them all.”

We slowly edged our way inside, looking closely, stepping carefully, and began our search.

Much of what had filled the room the first time we were here was now gone. Someone had removed a board from the top of the rear wall to let in more light and we could see more than before.

Most of the aquariums were gone, but the board and cinder block shelves that held them remained. Most of the croaker sacks were gone, but a few still littered the uneven plank floor. The smell of stale smoke still tinged the edges of the air, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been.

In the back left corner of the room, a stack of plastic milk crates facing outward held Turtle’s clothes—faded T-shirts with beer and rock band logos and well-worn blue jeans and cutoffs, the ends frayed. We looked through every crate, but turned up nothing.

“If this were your house,” Rachel said, “where would you hide your JOM?”

I turned and looked down at her. “Where’d you hear that expression?” I asked.

“Jack-off material? I have four older brothers. I’m an investigator with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

I nodded.

“Plus,” she added with a smile, “why would you think I didn’t have some of my own hidden in my house? My brothers never went blind from what they did but I might as well have.”

“Alanis,” I said. “Classic.”

She smiled appreciatively. “You know a lot of shit for a chaplain.”

“I’m not just a chaplain,” I said. “I’m a human being too.”

With the body removed the flies were gone but mosquitos swarmed in and out of the holes in the boards and the spaces between them. Both of us were continually swatting—occasionally slapping ourselves and smearing blood on our cheeks, necks, and hands.

“So back to my question,” she said. “Where would you—”

“Where would you?” I asked. “You’re the only one present who’s admitted to having any.”

“You’ve studied autoerotic asphyxiation,” she said. “How many cases of accidental death caused by it involved women?”

“Good point. Somewhere hidden but easy to get to. Of course if it wasn’t anything more explicit than a Victoria’s Secret catalog, it wouldn’t have to be hidden—speaking of which, did the one he was using have a shipping label on it?”

She shook her head. “It had been torn off.”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at her.

She nodded. “Suspicious, huh?”

“Any way to trace the catalog without the label?”

She shook her head.

“Anything helpful from the prelim?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. His injuries aren’t inconsistent with accidental strangulation.”

I nodded and frowned.

“So,” she said again, “back to my question.”

“Give me a minute to look around,” I said. “Did the techs find anything?”

She shook her head.

“What about other possible nooses?”

“Not a single one,” she said.

“Why don’t you look for them while I look for the other stuff?” I asked.

“What if I pick one up only to find out it’s a snake?”

“Apologize and put it down,” I said.

We each began our respective searches but always in close proximity to one another.

“Shouldn’t we spread out?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The stuff’s probably all together. Besides, I know how freaked out you are by this place.”

It took a while but we finally found what we were looking for—a small door in the floor beneath one of his homemade shelves. When we opened it, we discovered a plastic container nailed to the bottom of the boat. It held Turtle’s valuables—some cash, a few keys, a couple of family photographs, a few documents, and his porn.

Evidently Turtle liked his women big, big breasted, and hairy. He had quite a collection, and if what was in the hidden crate was what did it for him, Victoria held no secret that would.

“The killer underestimated Turtle,” she said.

I smiled and nodded.

“Going from material this explicit to an underwear catalog would be like going from actual intercourse back to upstairs outsidesies.”

“Upstairs outsidesies?”

She smiled. “And you know what that means,” she said.

“Old Turtle was murdered.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

T
he small, sterile room was dim and quiet, only the sounds of Mom’s labored breathing and the hum of the air conditioner keeping it from complete silence.

It was late. I was tired. But unable to sleep.

Continuing to be concerned about the state of my spiritual life, I was still making my way through Thomas Moore’s
Dark Nights of the Soul
again, hoping that’s all this was, and not how I would be fated to live out the rest of my sentence. I was reading about what Moore says are the links between creativity, spirituality, and struggles, and the need the deep soul has for the darker beauty of our existence.

I found his words soothing, his encouragement to give in to this Saturn state comforting, but my mind continued to drift, pulling me back again and again to the recent events I was searching for a brief reprieve from.

Eventually I closed the book and stood up. Rubbing my eyes and stretching, I walked over to the window and looked out.

It was a dark night. Small pools of light beneath street lamps dotting the darkness, illuminating only the limited area directly under them. The hot night’s humidity clung to everything, leaving a damp sheen that glistened like early morning’s dew-covered grass.

Standing there looking out at the darkness, seeing both it and a faint reflection of myself in the window, I thought about what it would be like not to have a mom.

We weren’t close. She hadn’t been a big part of my life for a long time. She wasn’t someone I relied on in any way, but the thought of not having her was nearly unbearable.

There was no way to know what the loss of her would be like, how it would impact me, the residual and lasting effects it would have on my life. How much would I miss her? How raw would her death leave me, how vulnerable and exposed her utter and complete and final absence?

My eyes began to sting and water, and I blinked and looked down, trying to keep from crying.

A copy of the Panama City paper on the floor caught my eye and I reached down and picked it up. The Local and State section was on top. A story above the fold showed a picture of a plane like the one I thought I saw when Michael Jensen had escaped.

The story told of a banner plane from the beach that had to make an emergency landing in a nearby state park. The Cessna 175, the one that looked nearly identical to the one I saw, lost power and drifted down into an open area, to the surprise of those picnicking in the park. According to a spokesperson for Air Ads Inc., the pilot did exactly what he was supposed to when he lost power—dropped his banner and looked for a safe place to land. No one was injured in the event and after a spare part was located and placed on the plane, it took off from the park and flew back to the private Air Ads Inc. runway.

In the past six years Air Ads Inc. had had a number of close calls, but only two crashes and one fatality. There was nothing mentioned about the plane I had seen, but I decided to take the paper with me and look into it more closely later.

As I placed the folded paper inside my book, Mom opened her eyes and looked up at me. I moved over and stood by her bed, taking her hand in mine and smiling at her.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked.

She turned her head and looked over at the tray beside her bed, then nodded to the pad of paper and pen she had been using to communicate.

I grabbed them and handed them to her.

She wrote:
Where is Jake?

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Why?”

She scribbled out very quickly:
I’m worried about him. He told me they had an organ for me. The next time I woke up he was gone. He hasn’t been back since. That’s been a few days ago I think. Hard to tell.

“I’ll check on him,” I said. “But don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine.”

We were silent for a long moment, tears filling her eyes.

They don’t have a transplant for me do they?

“Not that I’ve heard,” I said, “but I’ll ask again.”

Tears began to stream out of the corners of her eyes and pool in her ears.

I took her hand again. “I love you.”

She released my hand, and took up her pen again.

She wrote:
I don’t want to die.

I nodded, squeezed her hand, and said, “I know.”

We were quiet again, and in a few moments the phone rang. The loud noise in the quiet room was startling and Mom jumped.

I snatched it up and said, “Hello.”

“JJ,” a heavily accented Southern voice I only vaguely recognized said.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Haywood.”

Haywood Smiley owned and operated a bar and drive-thru package store on the edge of Pottersville.