Mute (4 page)

“It
has me stumped too, but we’ll take a sample back to our lab,” Swartzman said.

“Yeah,
I tried that,” Trainer said. “Still working on the results. I’ll tell you
though. This is what happens when you dump sewage and lawn pesticides and motor
fuel into the lagoon. And then there’s all the sulfuric and phosphorus run-off
from the farms. They’re turning a national treasure into toxic soup. This is
what happens!”

He
waved his hand at the sick turtle. It flinched.

After
encountering the Lagoon Watcher on missions with other professors, they told
Aaron that Ocean Village had fired him after he “went off the deep end” and
started publicly criticizing the theme park’s management for holding dolphins
and orcas in captivity. He compared their crowd-pleasing shows to slavery and
their marine mammal plush toys to the old derogatory depictions of blacks in
cartoons. Then he called for the closure of every farm in Central Florida until
they built water purification systems along the canals leading to the lagoon.
Bringing too much controversial pub to the tourist attraction, Trainer got the
boot. His former bosses didn’t exactly write him any glowing endorsement
letters that he could leverage into a new job.

Aaron
couldn’t tell whether Swartzman still respected Trainer for his groundbreaking
research or whether he admired him for doing something the docile professor
couldn’t: showing he had a pair and sticking up for what he believed in.

“There’s
no doubt that conditions in the lagoon are worsening,” Swartzman said. “Just
the other day, I read a report from the Water Management District saying the pH
level in the lagoon has dipped a little low—hedging dangerously towards acidic.
But it occurred in isolated spots only.”

“Maybe
that’s why this tumor is purple,” Aaron said. “The changing water conditions
are causing new diseases and mutations.”

While
Swartzman ignored him, Trainer eagerly nodded. “You see what I’m talking about,
don’t you? We must sound the alarm. We must put strict measures in place to
protect this lagoon before it spirals out of control.”

Swartzman
shrugged and scooted away from the Lagoon Watcher. All of a sudden, he couldn’t
lock eyes with his old pal. “I don’t know, Harry… I need to understand this
better before I declare a full-blown emergency. It’s one purple bump on one turtle.”

“It’s
more than that and you know it!” The Lagoon Watcher stepped up and shook his
finger in the professor’s face. “Don’t make this like the NASA incident where
you crawled under a rock when it was time to go to war.”

Swartzman
rubbed his palm across his sweaty forehead. Aaron had never heard about
Swartzman and NASA. As much as it piqued his curiosity, he figured his
professor had suffered enough degradation for one day. Turning his back on the
turtle, Aaron nudged between Swartzman and the Lagoon Watcher.

“All
right, hombres, no need to dig up all your battle stories from the Civil War,”
Aaron said. “We’ll slice up this purple tumor like a sushi roll and then we’ll
ring you up, Watcher man.”

The
Lagoon Watcher chortled as he clutched his dried-out sea star pendent. “I’ll be
waiting for that call.” He turned and bounded back aboard his boat.

As
delighted as Swartzman had looked when Trainer had arrived, he looked twice as
relieved when he left his skiff. Those two old men had a real love-hate bromance,
Aaron thought.

While
they watched the Lagoon Watcher ride off, they heard a big splash behind them.
Aaron whirled around so fast that he nearly fell overboard. He saw the
restraints that had held the sea turtle stretched out and torn. The sickly
shelled one had gotten away. He didn’t think it possessed the strength to
wiggle out of those restraints, much less have its flippers hoist it over the
side of the skiff.

“Oh
crap! Now look what you’ve done!” Swartzman shouted. “I told you to keep your
eye on the thing.”

“Come
on. I had to save your ass from that guy.”

“Who
said I needed saving? Harry is not a violent person.”

Aaron
didn’t have any evidence that suggested otherwise, but he had a hunch that the
passion Trainer had for defending the lagoon could turn ugly if the guy got
worked up. Yet, he should have known that Trainer didn’t pose a physical
threat. Otherwise, there’s no way Swartzman would have let him on board.

Aaron’s
paranoia had cost Swartzman his most important discovery in years.

“I’m
sorry, doc.” Aaron hung his head and took a seat. “I should have let you handle
it while I watched the turtle.” He gazed out over the water, where the beads of
sunlight bounced off the gently-sloping waves. “I swear I’ll get him back.”

“There’s
no need for that.” Swartzman turned a dismissive shoulder to his student and
took the skiff’s wheel. “I stuck a GPS tracking device on the sea turtle. He
won’t get far, but he needs time to calm down after this traumatic day. Next
time he’s in our area, we’ll pick him up.”

Even
though Aaron hadn’t completely blown it for them, Swartzman still carried a
hefty dose of disappointment in his voice. That was a tone Aaron recognized all
too well from his father. If this relationship deteriorated that severely, he’d
never get his degree.

Luckily
for Aaron, he’d have no shortage of opportunities at discovering freakish
phenomenon in the lagoon.

Chapter 3

They
finally called her by her name: Mariella Gomez. The girl didn’t bat an eyelash.
Her thin lips didn’t come unglued. They might as well have called her, “Paper
Bag.”

Moni
couldn’t believe how deep the girl had fallen down the well of debilitating
post-traumatic stress. She had comforted children who had lost their parents,
but never right before their eyes. Sometimes the children were in school or
asleep when it happened. A few times, Moni had spoken to kids after they awoke
in the hospital from an accident that claimed their parents. Usually, the first
task was helping them accept that their parents were actually gone. That wasn’t
a problem for Mariella. Seeing a mad man hack off the heads of her mother and
father and do unspeakable acts to their corpses would make an even deeper
imprint on the psyche of the young mind.

Moni
discovered the names of Mariella’s deceased parents from the identification
cards on the bodies. The killer hadn’t touched the Mexican immigrants’ cash.
The DCF officer and the child psychologist that joined Mariella and Moni in the
counseling room knew of Pedro and Rosa Gomez as well, yet none of them would
dare mention their names in front of Mariella - not on the same day the girl
had lost them. They feared it would spook her deeper into her hole like a
burrowing mouse.

The
eight-year-old girl had shown mild improvement in the hours since her rescue.
She had wet her pants twice, including once on Moni’s lap, and sat in the filth
without saying a word. After following Moni into the bathroom and watching her
do her business—since Mariella stuck by her everywhere—the girl had used the
toilet once by herself. The child had become so cautious she could hardly take
a step without making sure Moni walked beside her.

Moni
tried setting the girl down on one side of the psychologist’s couch and letting
Tanya from the DCF sit between them. Mariella immediately jumped down, scooted
in between the two women and rested her head on Moni’s knee.

“She’s
become quite attached to you, I see. That might be to replace someone who’s no
longer here right now,” said Dr. Ike McKinley, the blue-eyed psychologist with
thin gray hair. Despite the sweltering weather outside, he kept his office
sub-zero and wore a green sweater over his lanky frame like a Mr. Rogers
wannabe. Although, he specialized in children, his office didn’t have anything
more fun to play with than ink flash cards and wooden blocks. McKinley’s
bookshelf had cheery decorations like posters of the human brain and its
various regions and a row of stress relieving squeeze toys. Moni grew
frustrated by the sight of them because she could never grasp one hard enough
for it to pop open.

 
“It’s good that she has someone for the
moment,” Tanya said. “We can’t track down any relatives in the states. The
public school system has her down as a second grader at Challenger 7
Elementary. Her teacher said the girl speaks English slowly and is very shy
about it, but she chatters on and on in Spanish with her Mexican classmates.”

“But
she hasn’t responded to any Spanish with us,” Moni said.

She
gazed at the silky black hair of the child leaning against her. Mariella
flipped through flash cards—some with ink blots and others with pictures of
staple items like cats and milk. She studied them thoroughly, but didn’t
respond when Moni or the psychologist asked her what she saw. The girl wasn’t
stupid. Her teacher had told Tanya that she was a B student.

“It’s
called selective mutism,” Dr. McKinley said. “It’s when children who can speak
choose not to and become extremely withdrawn. A traumatic event is a common
trigger for this behavior, but the damage can be undone.”

“You
can help her?” Moni asked.

“I
believe so, if we place her into a facility with specialized care,” the
psychologist said.

As
soon as the words left his mouth, Mariella dropped the cards and held fast to
Moni’s waist. Without saying a word, the girl let everybody know who she felt
comfortable with.

Moni
had seen the deplorable conditions in state foster homes—the rooms crowded with
bunk beds and the understaffed counselors chasing after kids with severe
behavioral problems. Some kids had gotten raped or beaten in state care, if it
could even be called care. A lucky match with the right counselor in a home
that didn’t house a future sociopath would really help Mariella, but Moni
couldn’t toss the girl’s life on the craps table. Life had dealt her a crappy
roll of the dice already.

“I
don’t know about that. My girl here might crack under the stress of a foster
home,” Moni said. “I’ve seen some kids that previously gave good testimony
crumble into jelly after spending a few months in a home.”

“Yeah,
it ain’t the Ritz, but it’s what we got,” Tanya said. “I don’t see another
place for her right now. If you can think of a better option, then I’ll tell
the judge at the hearing tomorrow.”

Moni
knew she had another option, but it seemed out of the question. She couldn’t
possibly investigate these murders while caring for a recovering child,
especially the one at the center of the investigation. At 32 years old, she was
ripe for having children but her choice of men had proven disastrous. Moni
hadn’t so much as changed a diaper because she had spent too much time
polishing the rims of her man-child’s ride. Until she could chase her
ex-boyfriend Darren away for good, no child would be safe with her, Moni
thought.

The
girl stared into Moni’s eyes. She looked as terrified as she did in the mangroves.
Her hands quivered around Moni’s waist. With the girl’s body pressed up against
hers, Moni felt her heart beating as rapidly as a fax machine spitting out
data.

“Right
now, my recommendation is highly specialized foster care,” the psychologist
said. “You can see her every day under my supervision. Starting tomorrow, we’ll
work with her about drawing for us what happened today. A sketch of the
perpetrator would be a good start.”

Mariella
grabbed Moni’s hand and squeezed it until it turned white. Her mocha complexion
did that under pressure. And that’s how Mariella must have felt—pressured to
death. When Moni was a child, the last thing she needed after her father had
left her battered in her closet was a reminder of his face with its buck teeth,
shaggy brown hair and the scar across his chin. In the dining room, she ate
sitting in the only chair where she could avoid seeing his photo every time she
lifted her head.

While
poor Mariella struggled to forget the monster that had killed her parents, the
psychologist wanted that beast branded front-and-center on her mind.

Sneed
must have influenced him, Moni thought. If the detective couldn’t buy the DCF
or the judge, he’d pay off the psychologist that held sway with both of them.
He didn’t give a damn what happened to Mariella as long as he had the murderer
strapped on the gurney for lethal injection sure as Sneed had a deer head
strapped to his office wall.

Damn it, but there’s no other way
to catch the killer. I’ve already let enough people get hurt.

“There
might be another option, but I’ll meet with my investigation team first and see
how this case is going,” Moni said. “I’ll let you know before the hearing.”

“Okay,”
said Tanya, who gave Moni a look that reminded her of how her mother had
eyeballed her when she pined over a puppy she couldn’t have in the pet store
window. “Mariella can stay in protective custody with you—for now.”

“Like
she’d give me a choice?” Moni wrapped her arm around the girl. She saw a hint
of a smile on Mariella’s lips for a second and basked in its flash of warmth.
Someone wonderful had survived in there.

 
* * * *