Black River

SIXTY-FOUR

O’Brien parked his Jeep on the road beyond the razor-wire fence, just outside the Volusia County Jail Complex. He watched a parade of the exploited enter the jail. The users, losers, abusers — the trampled women with litters of dirty children in tow. Girlfriends with bruises as apparent as their tattoos — most visiting wife beaters and callous boyfriends conditionally remorseful because their rage was now trapped in a cage with them. When their freedom was entombed in a six-by-eight cell, sobriety was their first visitor. Guilt was a transient shadow.

Some were being held for violating parole, domestic abuse, selling or using drugs, theft and fraud — most riding the roller coaster track of the habitual offender in the macabre theme park of the criminal mind. Others were locked up and scheduled for jury trials on capital charges ranging from rape to murder.

O’Brien watched a heavyset bail bondsmen in a banana-yellow shirt stop on the sidewalk to light a cigarette. The bondsman waited as a man in a wrinkled gray suit joined him. The man had dark, hooded eyes, feral face and a small mouth. O’Brien recognized him as an attorney, a late-night infomercial king — an ambulance chaser: ‘In a legal jam? Call Sam — One eight-hundred dial Sam’s law.’

He thought about Silas Jackson, picturing the image of Jackson that the casting director, Shelia, had shared with him on her computer screen. He visualized Jackson in his Confederate uniform, eyes black, narrow and hard as marbles, 1950’s sideburns, and a scruffy handlebar moustache. Jackson’s attitude was captured in the photo as well. Go to hell.

When O’Brien glanced back at the entrance to the county jail, Silas Jackson was coming outside, squinting in the late-afternoon Florida sun like a hibernating animal rousted from its den of thieves.

It took less than five minutes. Silas Jackson stood on the corner a half block north of the Volusia County Jail Complex, smoked part of a thin cigar and in less than five minutes a black pickup truck pulled over to the side of the curb. Jackson dropped the cigar on the sidewalk, used the toe of his boot to crush it, and walked to the passenger door side of the truck.

From the opposite side of the street, O’Brien sat in his parked Jeep, watching Jackson and counting heads of those in the pickup truck. Three men, including Jackson. O’Brien could see the driver through the truck’s open window. Big guy. Baseball cap backwards on his head. Black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, the driver’s left arm resting out the window against the door. The muscular arm was filled with ink under the fur.

They pulled away from the curb and O’Brien started the Jeep’s engine. He waited for the truck to get a block away before following the men. The driver in the pickup truck drove another two blocks before making a left turn onto Jefferson Street.

O’Brien stayed as far behind the truck as he could, calculating the movement of traffic and the time it would take to clear stop signs and traffic lights. He knew Jackson’ pickup truck was back at the movie lot where Jackson had been taken in for questioning. He assumed the men were driving him to the set for his truck.

What he didn’t anticipate was that Jackson would be followed.

O’Brien spotted the BMW with tinted windows when the car first pulled out of a side street. It happened less than ten seconds after the truck with Jackson passed the first intersection away from the jail complex. The car’s windows were too dark for O’Brien to make out the driver’s face. He could tell that the man wore what appeared to be a traditional Scottish golf cap and sunglasses.

Maybe he was a detective, someone working with Dan Grant. Maybe they suspected Jackson of more than what Grant had said. O’Brien didn’t buy it. Something was wrong. Very wrong. What? Think.

It was something that Laura Jordan had said after Cory Nelson pulled the knife before bolting through the gate leading from Laura’s backyard. ‘He has a key to the front door, and he knows the alarm code. I have to change the locks.’

But before Ike Kirby was murdered, after Laura had been awakened when a man was standing in her bedroom in the dark and holding Paula sleeping in his arms, Laura said he’d whispered something. ‘It took me less than twenty-nine seconds to disarm your house alarm. How does it feel now knowing that you and little Paula are so unsafe, so unprotected.’

Cory Nelson knew the alarm code. And he had a key to the front door.

Someone other than Nelson broke into Laura’s home that night. Maybe someone other than Nelson killed Ike Kirby and the hotel clerk. Was it Silas Jackson? The guy in the BMW? O’Brien’s pulse rose as he stayed two cars behind the BMW, watching for a glimpse of the driver and keeping an eye on the truck with Silas Jackson sitting in the passenger seat.

O’Brien followed, trying to get close enough to the read the license plate, careful to keep from being spotted by whoever was driving the car. After four more blocks, the pickup truck made a right turn. The driver in the BMW looked two times into the rearview mirror and once into the side-view mirror. He abruptly turned into an alley. For a moment, O’Brien thought about ending his tail of Silas Jackson to follow the BMW instead.

O’Brien parked his Jeep under the deep shadows of an oak tree across from the entrance to the Wind ‘n Willows plantation. He’d followed the pickup truck until it turned off the road en route to the film set. And now O’Brien waited. He thought about calling Detective Dan Grant to let him know that Cory Nelson may not have killed Ike Kirby and the clerk. Maybe Grant could come to that conclusion when he interrogated Nelson. Maybe not.

But right now it was time to meet Silas Jackson.

The same pickup truck that delivered Jackson to the Wind ‘n Willows came down the long drive, stopped at the road and then turned east. A few seconds later it was trailed by a second pickup. Jackson was driving. He didn’t bother coming to a complete stop, pulling quickly onto the road and heading west. The first thing O’Brien noticed about the truck was its over-sized, off-road tires. Lots of knobby, dirt-grabbing tread design. He waited thirty seconds before following Silas Jackson.

Keeping his distance, O’Brien tailed the truck across County Road 76 for miles before turning onto a secondary road and then another as Jackson weaved deeper into the Ocala National Forest. O’Brien tried to hang back without losing sight of Jackson. As the truck snaked through the curvy road, he saw one brake light flash on and then go off. He slowed, trying to keep some distance between his Jeep and the truck. O’Brien could see Jackson using his phone. He assumed he’s been spotted and Jackson was calling his pals.

The road was a series of sharp S turns, oak trees on both sides, the sun partially blocked by the dense limbs. A white-tailed deer and her fawn jumped from behind a clump of trees, bolting in front of O’Brien’s Jeep. He slammed the brake pedal. The fawn stood paralyzed from fear, stopping in the center of the road. Staring. Eyes wide. Head held high. The doe jumped across a ditch into the trees and foliage. O’Brien waited, the little fawn pulled in its gangly legs, blinked once, and trotted across the pavement to join its mother in the woods.

O’Brien drove off, knowing that he may have lost the truck. He accelerated, scanning the entrances to dirt roads that led farther into the forest. He drove almost a mile before catching something out of the corner of an eye. He slowed the Jeep, stopped and backed up, turning onto the dirt road, still wet after last night’s rain. O’Brien got out of his Jeep and walked up to the deep, fresh tire tracks. He knelt down, touching the mud with the tips of his fingers, lifting his eyes up to the cypress and oak trees in the distance, the muddy path snaking into the obscurity of the forest.

The trail vanished into the heart of a dark place where O’Brien knew he would find Silas Jackson.