A False Dawn

EIGHTY-TWO

Nick’s voice sounded like a dream. “He’s awaking up!” I heard him say. “Sean, about time you stopped sleeping.”

I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, looked at the tubes running into my arms, the digital graphics monitoring my heart, and I glanced at the foot of the bed. Nick stood next to Dave, and both had big grins on their faces.

I said, “So, where’s the tin man?” My voice sounded like it came from Oz.

“If that’s Dan Grant, the detective,” Dave said, “he’ll be back.”

“How you feelin’ Sean?” Nick asked.

“Better than the last time I looked. How long have I been in here?”

Dave crossed his arms. “Three days. You were in IC for the first day. Lots of blood loss. When the EMTs got there, they said you looked like your body had gone into some kind of hibernation, sort of like those wood frogs we were talking about. Looks like your system had shut down, somehow, before it could bleed out. Santana did a number on your lower extremities.”

“Don’t tell me…”

“You’re okay there, old friend, but he tried to rearrange your intestinal tract.”

“How bad?”

“It’s all stuffed back in there. Surgeons sewed you up in a lot of places internally. Flooded you with a few liters of bacteria-killing agents. You ought to have one hell of an aftertaste in your mouth until that bleach gets out of your system. The docs checked for polyps while they were in there. Clean as a whistle.” He laughed.

“Where’s Max? Is she okay?”

“Fine,” Dave said. “Vet put some stitches in her. She’s waiting for you.”

Nick grinned. “I take her swimmin’ when you get all well. I know she’s a hot dog but she think’s like a lab.” He laughed and then his face became creased with concern. “What happened, Sean? Where’s the bad guy, Santana? Did he get away?”

Dan entered the room. I could tell he was worried. “Sean, it’s good to see you awake. How’re you feeling?”

“Considering the circumstances, I’d say okay.”

He smiled. “Must have been one hell of a fight. Lauren Miles called us when she heard Santana was heading for you. We found the rental car near your house. A patrol unit picked up a kid who said some ‘crazy white dude’ pulled a gun on him and made him walk away from the car.”

“That wouldn’t have been you, would it, Sean?”

“My memory is a little hazy.”

“Don’t see how Santana got near your place if he didn’t come by car.”

“Came by boat.”

“That how he got away? Using a damn boat?”

“He didn’t get away.”

“He didn’t? There wasn’t a body, but we did find drops of his blood on your dock. It was within six feet of the blood from you and your dog. So what the hell happened to Santana?”

“Best I can remember, he seemed to have lost his balance on the dock, fell in and couldn’t swim very well. Then he got in the mouth of a big gator.”

“Sean,” Dan sighed. “We found blood all over your porch, a big damn spearhead covered in blood. On the dock, we found a bow lying next to you and your dog. Looks like you had some kind of Custer’s Last Stand going on, a one-man war against Santana. Did you shoot him with an arrow?”

“I was shot in the gut. How could I pull back a sixty pound bow?”

“So, for the record, since we may never recover a body, Santana shot you, you hit him with your spearhead, he lost his balance, fell in the river, and was eaten by a gator.”

“It’s all kind of a blur after I was shot.”

Dan closed his note pad. “I’ll just get a statement on tape. You took out the most prolific serial killer since the Green River Killer.”

We talked about all the multiple investigations into the murders. A half dozen agencies, including the FBI, INS, Border Patrol, FDLE, the sheriff’s departments from three separate counties in Florida, two in Texas, and one in Los Angeles, were sharing notes, files and extradition proceedings. In addition to the arrests of Silas Davis and Hector Ortega, others that worked for them were arrested and charged with dozens of counts, including trafficking in human beings, slavery, prostitution, and murder.

Nick was late for a date with a schoolteacher whom he’d been eyeing since she moved into the new condos across the street from the marina.

After they were gone, Dave looked at the wires, tubes, and bandages holding my body together. He lowered his voice. “You could have died, you know that?

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s very noble to offer yourself as the bait, but not smart, especially with someone like Santana. You should have had backup right there at the house with you.”

“I did. Max bit his ankle.”

Dave grinned, his week’s worth of stubble was a bluish gray from the lights of the monitors. His eyes were red-rimmed, heavy, dark circles from worry and lack of sleep. “Sean, is he dead? Is all that about the gator true or is it some metaphor you’re using to explain maybe something that’s unexplainable.”

“What do you mean?”

“Santana resurfaced once before, could he do it again?”

“Not this time. His evil will resurface, but his body won’t rise up again.”

Dave nodded as a nurse entered. She was in her fifties, hair beginning to gray, lines on her face traceable to compassion, to her heart. “Are you hungry?”

“I could use something to get the taste of a nuclear meltdown out of my mouth.”

She laughed, “I’ll see if I can find a good meal for you.” As she took my pulse, she looked at my hands. “You still have a little of that dirt under a couple of fingernails. Thought I got it all out. Hands were filthy when they brought you in.”

“I guess I had some blood on them.”

“Yes, you did. You also had something else on them.”

“What?”

“The same stuff that was in the wound on your stomach. Mud! Some kind of dark mud. Lucky that didn’t kill you! Who in their right mind would risk infecting a wound with mud?”