The Butterfly Forest (Mystery/Thriller) (37 page)

“They did.”

Dave nodded.  The last boxcar in the train zipped by, and the crossing gates lifted.  He put the car in gear.  “Maybe somewhere in Gonzales’s operation, somewhere in his sick brain, maybe he’s reenacting imagery from what he considers to be the world’s best book,
One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

As Dave pulled into the Ponce Marina lot I said, “So to profile Pablo, all we have to do is read between the lines in Marquez’s novel, and we’ll have an idea what motivates a narcissist killing machine.”

“Or at least what may have influenced him.”

“Look at how the Koran and the Bible have influenced generations.”

“Some biographers also have drawn parallels between the book of Genesis and Marquez’s story.”

I wedged the Glock under my belt as we headed down L dock
,
glad to be taking in the scent of the sea.  Mullet jumped in the tidal waters.  A fishing boat loaded with tourists chugged into the Halifax River, making its way to Ponce Inlet and the ocean.  A fisherman on M dock cast a line toward the leaping mullet.  He wore a baseball cap, watched the charter boat and puffed a cigar as he adjusted the drag on his line.

Dave stopped walking and said, “Your Jeep will be ready tomorrow.  Except for the stitches in your shoulder, and the fact a self-absorbed little drug lord wants your head, I’d say things are getting back to normal around here.  In no time, we’ll be our regular, old marina community of miscreants, misfits and pirates.”

“There’s no place like home.”

Dave scratched at his salt and pepper stubble on his chin.  “What are you going to do about Elizabeth?”

“What do you mean,
about
?”

“If it wasn’t safe for her earlier, it has to be like living on the absolute edge now.”

“Pablo Gonzales is looking for me.  I don’t think Elizabeth has any value to him anymore.  Izzy’s dead.  But before he died, he didn’t know Elizabeth couldn’t ID him.  Neither did Frank Soto and ranger Ed.  They killed Luke Palmer to prevent his possible testimony, but now Izzy’s death makes it all moot.”  

Dave watched a white pelican sailing over the bay, its snowy feathers reflecting off the water.  He said, “Vengeance is a savage but universal motivation, one shared among sociopaths and, unfortunately, many others in our species.  Pablo Gonzales, the poster boy of psychopaths, will come for you like Santa Anna crossing the Texas border 150 years later.  Elizabeth isn’t safe on your boat.”

“I know.”

Dave leaned up against the dock railing.  He scanned the moored boats behind me.  I watched the fisherman make a second cast, his detached glance drifting around the marina like the tawny smoke from his cigar. 

Dave said, “I made a couple of calls, did a little research.  Pablo Gonzales has everything money can buy as a drug lord.  Most likely, he has hundreds of corrupt officials in his pocket.  He has an arsenal that many small nations would envy.  One thing he doesn’t have is a sex life.  Pablo suffered a horrid bout with the mumps as a teenager.  It settled in his balls and rendered him sterile and impotent.  Consequently, no children.  He contracted a disease that was eradicated in the states.  So Izzy was the son he never had.  Perhaps this explains his threats to you, the reference to castration.  His raging bull, his non-realized fantasy, may be sexual in nature.  A testosterone level extinguished by disease not desire.”

I said nothing.

Dave added, “Maybe the feds will find him.  Maybe they won’t.  There’s one man I feel sure would help if I asked him.  And, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the only man I know that can help you at this point, and Sean… you need help.”

“Who’s this man?”

“You remember Cal Thorpe, of course.

“AKA Eric Hunter.  He worked on the case that brought down the FBI breach.”

“At one time, I thought Thorpe was the best field operative our country has ever produced.  And then you came along, Sean.  You set a trap that caught the breach, and I knew at that point Cal Thorpe could learn something from you.”

“It was a collective effort.  I didn't do it alone—”

“My only point in this reference is the fact that you worked with Thorpe at that time, and I believe you could use his skills right now.”

“Does this mean you think that agents Flores, Jenkins, Keyes and the rest of their team can’t prevent Pablo Gonzales from keeping his assassins from me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think one was just here.  Casing us.”

NINETY-TWO

The twin diesels aboard a fifty-foot Ocean Sports Fisherman, three slips down from us, cranked in a cloud of exhaust smoke that floated over the marina in a bluish fog.   

“What’d you say?” Dave asked, swirling around.

“He was fishing from M dock.  And he was fishing with
no
bait on his hook.  No tackle box.  No bait bucket.  He wore white sneakers.  Pressed, expensive jeans.  And he wore a New York Yankees cap on his head.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone.  He looked our way for a second before walking down the dock, melting in with the crowd near the Tiki bar, and no doubt disappearing from the parking lot.  But he may have left behind a calling card.”

“What do you mean?”

“He left his cigar butt on the railing.  No bigger than your thumb, and that might be big enough.  Let’s walk over there to see if it’s the same brand Izzy smoked.”

The man had left the wet cigar on the weathered and creosote-stained dock railing.  I said, “It looks expensive, dark leaves, probably hand-rolled.  It could be the same brand Izzy Gonzales smoked.  We can store it in a Ziploc.”  I stuck the tip of a ballpoint pen in the warm ash and carried it back to
Jupiter
.

Dave stopped walking near
Jupiter’s
transom.  “Do you want me to call Cal Thorpe?” he asked.

“Does he have a family?”

“You know I can’t answer that?”

“You just did.  I don’t want to risk his life.”

“He speaks Spanish like he was raised in Mexico.  Maybe he can get in the inside, find the weak link to Gonzales.”

“All of that takes time, money and people in Langley who have a reason to toss me a rope.  We don’t have any of that right now.”

“Maybe we do.”

“What do you mean?”

Dave folded his thick arms.  “It depends on how bad they want Gonzales, and my guess is that in this political climate, they want him pretty bad.  The president’s pledged to do whatever it takes to stop or dramatically curtail the flow of Mexican drugs smuggled across our border.  But a billionaire, like Pablo would operate in an insular environment.  It’d be like invading Fort Knox.  However, you may be the catalyst to bring him out.”

“You mean the bait.”

“Look at it from this perspective, Sean.  You’re already in his sights, and if that fake fisherman you spotted is connected to Pablo, it’s now only semantics.  If you’re his prey, it stacks the odds in his court.  If you’re bait, and if someone’s got your back, it can give you the edge in an international street fight.”

“There are a lot of fine and dedicated men and women carrying federal shields.  And there are some not so competent, and that can put me in a dangerous place.”  

A young couple steered a Morgan into the pass, popped the spinnaker and let the east wind push the sailboat into the channel.  I said, “What I’d like more than anything is to drive over to Cedar Key and take a few weeks to sail a 41 Beneteau back here to Ponce Marina for the new owner.  He’s in Boston, a novice sailor who wants to take delivery when he and his family winter in Florida.”

Dave picked at a hangnail.  “Sometimes it’s hard to read your opponent, to play the cards dealt when never asked to sit in the game.  But that comes with the territory.”

“I’ve stepped away from the table.  Agents Flores, Jenkins and Keyes and their colleagues can take the reins.  Izzy Gonzales, the man who killed Molly, Mark, and Luke Palmer, is dead.  Frank Soto raped Nicole Davenport and left her shell to be zipped by ranger Ed Crews.  The feds can chase them down.  I gave them a head start by dropping the tracker in a dead man’s shorts.  Let them take the lead and run with it.” 

 We watched as Joe the cat, a calico, thick with muscle and attitude, strutted by, ignoring us, holding his scarred head high.  Dave said, “I’m going back online to see if the GPS signal might have returned.  Maybe we’ll see it heading for the Yucatan.”

“Just leave it, Dave.  It took too many deaths to get a serious federal posse out there.  If the feds want to use me to get Gonzales, let them earn it.  I’m done.”   

“We both know you can’t walk away.  Before, it was to help track down a killer for that lady on your boat.  Now, it’s because Gonzales won’t let you walk away.  Sean, we need to turn the game around so you do walk away.”

 I looked at the cigar stuck to the end of a Bic pen, my hand gripping the pen hard, knuckles white as cotton.  Max barked.  I turned when she pawed at the glass on the sliding door leading into
Jupiter’s
salon.  The door slid open, and Elizabeth stepped out on the transom with Max jumping up, trying to see the direction Joe the cat had gone.

Elizabeth smiled.  She wore beige shorts and a white cotton top.  “Max has been such a sweetie.  She was napping on the couch until she looked up and saw you two out here.  I thought her little tail was going to fall off she was wagging it so hard.”

I smiled. “And then she saw ol’ Joe, and her recessed lioness DNA took control.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll join you gentlemen up there.”  Elizabeth walked to the steps leading from the transom to the short section of dock that held
Jupiter’s
mooring ropes.

Dave lowered his voice.  “This is all yours, now.  Think about what we discussed.  Think about your options, Sean.  That guy with the fishing pole was on M dock, less than fifty yards from where we’re standing.  No doubt he’s a pair of eyes for Pablo.  You know the next time they come it’ll be on your doorstep, and they won’t be carrying a fishing rod.”

Dave waved to Elizabeth as he walked across the dock and stepped aboard
Gibraltar
, disappearing into the air conditioned salon.

Elizabeth looked at my arm in the sling and kissed me on the cheek.  I could smell the fragrance of hibiscus from the shampoo she’d used.  “Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” I said, glancing around the marina.  “We have to talk.”

NINETY-THREE

We made coffee and sat at the bar inside
Jupiter.
 I told Elizabeth what Pablo Gonzales had said.  She listened then asked, “What are you saying, Sean?  Are you suggesting that it’s safe for me to go back to the restaurant, to go back to a world I don’t even recognize since Molly was taken away from me?”

“They’ll come for me, Elizabeth.  I don’t want you here to risk your life when they come.  I’m going to put you in safekeeping, somewhere no one can find you until I stop Gonzales.”

She stood from the bar and watched a trawler chugging into the marina with a white-haired man behind the wheel on the fly-bridge and a woman less than half his age in a bikini lounging on the seat beside him, a tall Bloody Mary in her hand.  Elizabeth turned back toward me, her eyes capturing the ruby reflection of the sunset off the bay.  “You went back into that forest for me, for Molly, too.  I’m
not
going to abandon you.  Not now.  No damn way.  I won’t give Gonzales permission to intimidate me.  I can shoot a gun—”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, but you can’t stay here.  Gonzales will—”

“Shhh,” she said, stepping up to me.  I stood as she tenderly reached out to touch my shoulder.  “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I breathe.”

She unbuttoned my shirt, her fingers gently touching the dressing.  She lifted her eyes to mine, the pools of green filled with compassion, her lips wet.  She said nothing as she guided my right hand to her cheek.  She pressed her body against me, her eyes locked on mine.  I cupped her face with both hands and leaned down as we kissed.  Her lips were warm and soft, no trace of lipstick.  She smiled and said, “Make love to me, Sean.

“I don’t know if this is the right time—”

“This is the best time, Sean.  Time is all we have, and I don’t want to waste it with things that aren’t important in my life.”

She reached for my hand and led me down the three steps to the master berth.  As I closed the door to the cabin, I glanced back up at Max.  She sat on the couch in the salon, ears cocked, eyes following something outside, something farther away than the dock in front of
Jupiter.

Inside the cabin, I looked out the porthole for a second, and watched the setting sun cast the marina in shades of cherry and black.  I pulled the curtains shut.  Maybe Max saw nothing menacing, her little radar catching something that wasn’t hostile.

I turned to Elizabeth as she unbuttoned her shirt, her face alluring, eyes filled with conviction.  We kissed again, long and passionate, then undressed.  She looked at my bandage for a second, her eyes blinking back tears.  I kissed her again and could feel the heat radiating from her skin.  Then I lay on my back and guided her over me.  She looked into my eyes, slowly mounting me, her eyes closing, a deep breath, her hair cascading on both sides of her face, brushing against my chest and shoulder, the pain in my arm extinguished.  Elizabeth’s soft moans were drowned by a diesel engine cranking a few slips away.  A single tear rolled down her cheek and fell in the center of my chest.  She leaned down to kiss me and I felt her body quiver.