The Butterfly Forest (Mystery/Thriller) (2 page)

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. 

THREE

I watched the heat rising from the parking lot and tops of cars as two Walmart security guards ran toward us, radios glued to their ears.

“What happened?” asked the larger of the two guards.  He had a flattop haircut, wide shoulders, his voice the tone of ex-military.

“Attempted abduction,” I said.

“We saw him haul outta here on that Harley.”

I could hear the wail of sirens.  “Law’s on the way,” the second security guard said, stepping closer.

I said, “His gun is over there but don’t pick it up.  Keep the public back and away from the gun.  The ladies in the car could use some assistance, too.”

“Are they injured?” the first guard asked.

I started to answer, but the mother said, “Only my pride.”  She got out of the car as her daughter exited the passenger side and came around toward me.  Both women stayed away from the gun on the pavement.  The mother stared at the gun.  Her face filled with repulsion.  She looked up at me.  “I hate to think what might have happened to us if you hadn’t been here.”

I smiled.  “Right place at the right time.  I was picking up some varnish for my boat and spotted him stalking you.”  I looked back to the spot in the parking lot where I’d left the things.  Gone.  Stolen, bag and all contents.  I shook my head.  “Looks like someone walked off with the stuff I just bought.  Oh well.” 

“I’m so sorry.  Please, let me reimburse you for whatever was stolen.”

“No, it’s fine… really.  The important thing is that you’re okay.”

She smiled and adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder.  She was a striking woman in her early forties.  Long dark hair.  Accented cheekbones, a sensual mouth and eyes that caught the sun like polished emeralds.  She kept her body in good shape.  No wedding band.  The younger woman came from the same gene pool.  

I said, “There’s good news.  They didn’t steal my shoes.  Be right back.”  They looked at me curiously as I turned to hop across the hot asphalt, slipped my shoes back on and returned.  The daughter smiled, started to say something, but the howl of sirens, screech of tires and approach of the police cavalry diverted her attention. 

Officers spoke quickly with the Walmart security, bagged the gun, fenced off the scene with yellow tape and approached us.  One asked me, “What happened?”

I told him and added, “There’s blood on the pavement next to the driver’s side door.  You can get a DNA sample there, no doubt.”

“We’ll do that,” the other officer said.  He continued, “So you dove over that Toyota and body-slammed the suspect into the car, huh?”

“Pretty much the way it happened.”  I smiled.  They did not.

“He saved our lives,” said the mother. 

“Your hero could have got you killed,” said the first officer, his voice flat. 

“But he didn’t,” she said, her face resolute, crossing her arms.  “Thank God there are people like…”  She looked at me.  “I don’t even know your name.”

“Sean O’Brien.”

She cut her eyes to the officer. “Mr. O’Brien is a hero in my book.”

“Me, too,” the girl said.

The officer nodded.  “I just heard Detective Lewis on the radio.  He was in the area, now he’s here,” said his partner.  They walked back toward the women’s car that now was in the center of crime-scene tape, the shoppers standing behind the tape like spectators at a neighborhood soccer match.  Television news trucks rolled up.  A detective walked over to us.  He looked close to retirement, bags under his eyes, a long, pointed face.  “I’m Detective John Lewis.  Can each of you tell me what happened?”

“Sure,” I said and told him.

“You always dive over cars?”

“Only if they’re in the way.”

 He took notes and then listened as the two women recounted what happened.  The mother ended by saying, “It was so fast.  He said, ‘slide over, don’t scream or you’re both dead.’  He said he knew where we lived.  Next thing I saw was his face smashing into the car, and this gentleman was standing over the guy.”

Detective Lewis thanked us, handed out cards and told us to call him if we could remember anything else.  He walked back to the swelling ranks of police and media.

I saw a bystander talking with a reporter, the shopper pointing in our direction.  I turned to the women and said, “They have all they need from me.  You ladies take care of yourselves.  Nice meeting the both of you.  Goodbye, Miss Monroe.”

“How did you know my name?” the mother asked.

“Heard you give it to the officer… Elizabeth and Molly Monroe, Harbor Drive.”

Elizabeth smiled and used her finger to pull a strand of hair from behind one ear.  “You’re pretty observant.  Attention to detail in the midst of chaos.”

“I’ve had some practice at it.”

 Molly Monroe folded her arms and asked, “Were you a cop?”

“Long ago.”

Elizabeth’s face filled with thought.  “You literally saved my life and my daughter’s, too.  I don’t even know how to begin to thank you.”

“You already have.  Be careful.”  I smiled and started walking.

“Wait,” she said catching up with me.  “I
know
that you saved our lives.”  She glanced over her shoulder as investigators took pictures of her car.  “He would have killed us.  I can feel it.  He said we were ‘going for a little ride.’  Said he knew where we lived, even where our restaurant is located.  How’d he know these things?”

“Have you noticed anyone following you lately… maybe from a motorcycle?”

 “I don’t think so.  My skin’s still crawling.  A simple thank you seems so small.”

“It’s the simple things in life that I tend to remember the most.”  I smiled.  She looked at me, her expression reflective, and her emerald eyes searching my face.