The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller)) (36 page)

The Butterfly Forest

ONE

Molly Monroe began to get the feeling she was lost.  The ranger had told them the elusive coontie plants were in the Ocala National Forest, a mile north of Alexander Springs.  “Lots of them,” he’d said.

That was three hours ago.

Molly and her boyfriend, Mark Stewart, walked beneath towering bald cypress trees, Spanish moss sagging from the limbs like wet beards in the humid Florida morning.  Air plants resembling sea urchins clinging to branches, and bromeliads the tint of cherries, hung from trees as if the forest had been decorated with holiday ornaments. 

“Wait a sec,” Molly said, ducking to avoid a spider’s web.  She was tall, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, vivid golden-brown eyes that trapped the sunlight streaming through the cypress boughs. 

“What?” Mark asked.

“Shhh… did you hear that?”

“What?”

“A sound that stopped when we stopped.”

Mark grinned, a feigned chuckle coming from his throat.  “I didn’t hear anything.”  He was an inch taller than Molly, blonde hair, slim build, wide smile—a graduate student in botany.  It was his smile that had first attracted Molly to him.

 Three months ago, she’d accepted a part-time job working at the University of Florida’s butterfly rainforest exhibit, meeting when he had brought in some clover, the perfect flower for yellow swallowtails.

 But this morning they were far from campus, deep within the oldest national forest in the East, Ocala National Forest.  It was here where Molly hoped to find the only plants that could support the lifecycle of the atala butterfly.  The butterflies were beautiful and very rare, one of the most endangered in America.  

She forced a smile.  “I don’t hear it anymore.”

“Probably a squirrel.”

“Long as it’s not some bear that missed a few dinners.”

“Lions, tigers and bears—oh my,” Mark grinned, the dimples in his cheeks deep, his eyes teasing. 

“I’m studying entomology, not lions, tigers and bears. Come on.”

They threaded their way through the underbrush, deerflies orbiting their heads.  Mark said, “Coontie—that sounds like some poor animal caught in ropes.”

“It’s like a fern, a very old plant.  Dates back to dinosaurs.  If you think about it, this forest would be the perfect place for the atala to make a return.  No people and no development.  If we find the coontie, we can come back, release some butterflies, and hope they lay eggs on the plants. They might hatch into fat and oh-so-lovely caterpillars, and grow up to be beautiful atalas.”

A limb fell from a dead tree that had been splintered long ago by lightning, startling them.

Mark said, “Just a rotten limb.  If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it… does in make a noise?”

Molly grinned and started to say something when a woodpecker drilled into the dead tree—
tat tat tat
.  It was a hollow echo, like a wooden mallet knocking on the door of an ancient tree with sawdust for its organs.  Its rings of life long since killed and devoured by insects and time.  As they walked, a long hoot from a great horned owl traveled through the boughs.  Molly’s eyes widened. “I thought owls slept in the day.”

“Not always.  Some hunt for prey in the morning and late afternoon.”

They followed the clear waters of a spring as it led them deeper into the forest. 

Molly looked at the time on her cell phone: 4:45 p.m.  She also looked at the signal.  No bars.  No way to call.  Her chest tightened.  Before Dad’s death, he had taught her to be strong.  “Don’t let fear make your mind freeze,” he often said.  She would find the coontie plants and help reintroduce a nearly extinct butterfly back into the world.  Molly set her jaw line and took longer strides.  

A crow flew overhead, its call a mocking cry.  A long black snake slithered from a pine that had fallen and rotted across a path almost concealed by tall ferns.  Mark stopped.  He said, “That was awesome!  Probably the biggest black racer I’ve ever seen.”  He opened a plastic bottle and drank.  “Thirsty?”

“I just want to find the plants.  They should be here, according to the ranger.”

Mark laughed.  “Next time we’ll bring a GPS tracker, or at least a compass.”

“Let’s keep moving.”

As they got farther away from the spring, a fighter jet roared overhead, its sound and presence like an alien ship in a land of dragonflies and ghosts of pterodactyls.  Molly recalled how an archeology class found remains of a woolly mammoth in the muck, a bog near the St. Johns River.

Molly pointed west and said, “The ground is drier in that direction.”

“That’s the opposite way from where the ranger said we might find them.”

“I know, they grow in drier soils.  Come on, it’s a big forest.”  

They walked another half mile, the breeze rattling palm fronds.  “Look, over here,” she said, slipping her camera out of her backpack and jogging toward some foliage that dotted an area in front of ancient oaks.  “Yes!  These are coontie.  They’re old and very beautiful.  We’ll come back and do a butterfly release right here.  These plants look like ferns, but to the atala they’re a well-stocked home.” 

Mark grinned.  “I knew we’d find them.  But I’m not sure we’ll find them again.”

“Sure we will.  I’m going to take lots of pictures.’’  She snapped dozens of photos, moving in and around the fern-like plants.  The sun was setting behind the old oaks, casting deep shadows as the clouds darkened, making their lavender edge take on a burgundy tinge.  Molly lowered the camera from her eye, her face puzzled, eyes searching the gaps in shadows and trees.  “Did you see that?”

“See what?”  Mark looked in the direction she stared.

“I saw a man watching us.”

“Are you sure?”

Molly’s throat was dry, her face flush.  “Yes, now he’s gone.”

 The wind made a rushing sound through the branches.

Mark said, “It’ll be dark soon.  We need to find the car.  Let’s get out of these woods.” 

TWO

If the marine supply store had been open on Sunday, I wouldn’t have made an unscheduled stop at Walmart where I bought varnish and spotted a predator following the women.  They were leaving the register closest to the door where a senior Walmart greeter, wearing a yellow smiley face button, welcomed shoppers. 

The women didn’t appear to detect the man tracking them.  They were in no hurry.  The resemblance between the two women was striking, a college-aged daughter and her mother.  They walked across the wide parking lot, laughing, carrying shopping bags and taking their time.  They were in no rush.

He was.

He tried to fake his direction—a lone wolf moving around the parked cars in the sea of automobiles.  He looked to his right and left.  Looked for security cameras.  Walked quickly.  Tried not to be noticeable.  To most people, he wouldn’t be anything more than a stressed shopper hunting for his car in the maze of models and metal that winked under the hot Florida sun.

To me, he was hunting for something else, and he had the subtle moves of a killer—a hyena-like cadence.  Head down, baseball cap low—just above the hooded eyes trained on the women’s every move.  I had about fifteen seconds to decide whether to run to my Jeep, parked one hundred feet away, grab my .9 mm under the seat and try to draw down on the perp.  Maybe I could sneak up and take him out with a well-placed strike.

Ten seconds.

The girl got in the passenger side and closed the door.  As the mother opened her car door, he was there.  His back turned to the only security camera I saw.  His body language restrained, yet I knew he’d pulled something from his belt—a knife or a pistol.   And even from the distance, I saw the women were terrified.  The mother’s mouth formed an O, her eyes darting from his hand to his face.  The girl’s face filled with terror. 

Five seconds.  Decision time.  I punched my cell.

“Emergency Services, may I help you?”

“I’d like to report a crime in progress.”  I kicked off my boat shoes.

“In progress?  Where, sir?”

“Walmart parking lot.  On Summerlin Drive.  White male, late twenties, dirty blonde hair, well-built, earring left ear, red T-shirt and blue jeans.  Man’s about to kidnap or rob two white females.  They’re in a blue Ford Escape.”

“About to?  Is anyone injured?”

“They’re going to be.”  I set my shopping bag down next to my shoes.

“Sir, can you—”

I ran in my bare feet.  Ran hard.  Kept low.  I used the cars as a shield to block his vision as I approached.  There was the flash of silver, the chrome barrel on his .22 catching the sunlight, an unintentional distress signal.  The real signal was on the woman’s face when the man pushed her from the driver’s seat across to the passenger side next to her daughter.  As he started to enter the car, I dove.  Sailed headfirst over the hood of a Toyota.  Right fist cocked.  More than 190 pounds flying through the air.

I drove my knuckles into the back of his neck.  His face slammed into the doorframe.  The sound was like an ax splintering hard wood.  His legs buckled.  As he collapsed, the pistol scattered across the hot pavement. 

The mother screamed—her voice a frightened wail.  Then she hyperventilated, her breathing coming in deep gasps.  Her daughter trembled.  She blurted, “He said if we screamed, he’d kill us!” 

“Do you have a cell?” I asked.

The mother nodded, words catching in her throat, tears streaming, a vein in her neck pulsating.  “Call the police.  Tell them to roll an ambulance, too,” I said.  “My call was cut short.”  She found her purse on the floorboard and tried to punch the digits with her shaking fingers.

“Is… is he dead?” she managed to utter, her body trembling, holding the phone to her ear and one hand to her throat.

“He’ll feel like it when he wakes up.”  I stood over the unconscious man who laid face down, blood and drool seeping from his open mouth onto the asphalt.  A fly alighted on a bloodied ear.  On his upper arm, there was a tattoo of a nude woman adorned with black butterfly wings trimmed in an aqua-blue.

As the mother managed to tell the dispatcher what happened, dozens of shoppers formed a safe half circle around us, fingers working cell phones.  I could smell the beer, sweat and stale odor of cigarettes from the man’s clothes.  A baby cried.  A yellow dog stood in the bed of a faded pickup truck and barked.  A low-rider drove across the parking lot, the booming base from the speakers like war drums in the distance.

I walked to the right rear tire where the pistol lay gleaming in the sun.

“Look out!” the warning came from one of the women in the car.

I saw the shadow in front of me.  As I turned, the man charged, kicking me in the rib cage.  I felt the air in my lungs exit like a popped balloon.  “You’re a fuckin’ dead man!” he screamed as he ran by me, ran between moving cars across the lot.

I stood, holding my side, the air coming in one big heave as my lungs refilled.  I heard the roar of a motorcycle, and then I saw chrome and leather move between the long rows of parked cars.  The man was doing more than sixty miles an hour in a parking lot as he wove around shoppers, pulled out into traffic on the busy road, and was gone.

 At that moment, I thought of Max.  Thought of her little bladder and how long I might be away.