A False Dawn

FIFTY-ONE

I awoke on the bridge to the sound of laughing gulls flying by me and the noise of a charter boat leaving. The sun looked as if it had been up at least an hour. I stood from the captain’s chair on legs that felt like I’d gone twelve rounds in the ring. My left leg was numb and tingling, the blood beginning to circulate through a cramped muscle. My joints stiff as spring flowers caught in a late snow fall.

I managed to climb down the steps to the cockpit without falling. Stepping inside the salon, I saw a note left on the couch next to my pillow. Sean, had to run. Needed to get in early before Slater arrives. Call you later! You looked so sweet sleeping up top, didn’t have the heart to wake you — Leslie.

I made coffee, headed for the shower, and planned to spend part of the day where the last victim was found.

On the drive to the wildlife refuge I called Ron Hamilton. “What’s the last known address of the Bagman survivor, the last attack before the perp went underground? Didn’t she move to Jacksonville?”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll see what I have.”

“I’ll be on my cell. If you can’t reach me, leave a message.”

“You gonna be unreachable by cell?”

“I’ll be in a wildlife refuge.”

“That where they found the last vic, the one was opened up?”

“That’d be the place.”

“Be careful, partner. The woods can be full of creeps.”

The primitive road into the St. Johns Wildlife Refuge was narrow. Room for one vehicle to travel either way. As I entered the refuge, the sunlight was diminished by the tree line. I could smell blooming honeysuckles, pine straw, and thick grass still wet from last night’s rain.

Within a ten-minute walk, I came to the crime scene tape that sectioned off the spot where the body was found. I began following the furrows, going deeper into the wildlife refuge. It was about eighty yards farther when I found the spot, I assumed, where the vehicle with the body had tried to turn around and got stuck in the mud. Even after the rain, ruts caused by the back tires spinning were deep. Rainwater had pooled in the bottom. I walked past the ruts, looking on both sides for broken limbs, bark, or logs.

I turned to head back toward the Jeep, but as I started to step over one of the ruts, the reflection of the tree line on the water caught my eye. A large sycamore tree stood less than twenty feet away. I reached into the dark water, my fingers feeling and sifting through small rocks, twigs, and sand. I pulled up three leaves and looked at the sycamore tree near me. In the dappled sunlight, I examined the leaves and wondered if there might be others, perhaps miles away, that were exact DNA matches to the muddy sycamore leaves in my hand. Was it possible? If so, and if I found leaves with the same plant DNA, it meant they could have come from only one place. The same tree.