Blood of Cain

48

I didn’t need the GPS to tell me I’d reached my destination. A raging fire told me that. I pulled my Jeep into the circular driveway of Show Time Fish Camp. I drove past a dark SUV near the entrance. Neighbors were spilling out of nearby trailers, wearing pajamas and shocked looks on the faces of what appeared to be mostly retired people. A saw a woman in a red bathrobe hold up her phone. Maybe she’d dialed 911.

As I parked, I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. I lifted my Glock from under the seat of the Jeep, got out, and peered in through the open door with a bronze plate on it that spelled: Office. I took one step inside and listened for a few seconds. All I could hear was the crackling of the fire roaring from somewhere beyond the office.

I held the Glock in both hands. Walked silently. There was a movement out of the right corner of my eye. I aimed the pistol to the floor where a large white and yellow snake crawled over the chest of man who’d been shot in the head. The entrance wound looked to be a small caliber gun, maybe a .22. His lips were blue. No sign of breathing. Open eyes staring up at a ceiling fan. He was a dwarf with some features resembling Isaac Solminski. The snake slithered off the body, through a large pool of blood near the dead man’s head, leaving a bloody S pattern as it crawled across a white tile floor.

I quietly searched each room. Nothing. No sign of the perp or perps and no sign of Courtney Burke. Beyond the office was what appeared to be a screened-in aviary, filled with orchids, other flowers, and a few birds. I spotted two blue and orange lovebirds sitting on an open perch. I almost stepped on a large white cockatoo lying dead on the floor near a bushy philodendron.

I ran outside as rain began to fall over the area, the water doing little to douse a fire more than two-hundred feet away from the office. I sprinted through citrus trees towards the firestorm. It looked like a trailer or mobile home was burning. I searched for a garden hose. Nothing. The thought of Courtney Burke trapped in that incinerator made my hands feel as hot as the flames against my face. The trailer was less than twenty-five feet from a river, and no way to get water from it. Where was Courtney?

My heart hammered in my chest. I felt absolutely powerless. I assumed police would be here probably before I could leave the neighborhood. The trailer was so engulfed in a maelstrom of flames, if anyone was inside it they would be cremated. And there was nothing I could do for the dead man inside the office.

The air smelled of soot, burnt rubber and plastic — and something I smelled on the scene of a plane crash in the Everglades … charred flesh. There was not a doubt in my mind that someone died in the fire, I just didn’t know who. I felt a drop of cold rain run down the back of my neck as I dialed 911.

I reported the shooting and fire, and I left them with my name. The incentive call was to ease their suspicion about me when the cavalry arrived. My thoughts raced, searching for evidence, maybe something dropped on the ground — something to connect Courtney to this place. I could see very little in the drifting smoke and pelting rain. I thought about the black Lincoln SUV near the drive. Whose was it, and where was that person or persons?

The wail of sirens and horns filled the night air now pulsating with the flash of blue and white emergency lights, radios crackling with staccato bursts, handguns drawn. They were followed by firefighters. I tucked the Glock behind my back and under my shirt as they rolled hoses from the tankers, through the side yard, down to the inferno. I looked back to the office and could see police, detectives, and paramedics working the scene. A few minutes later, a young police officer approached me. He held a long flashlight and a short pistol, a .38. “Who are you, sir?” he asked. “And what is your business standing here in these orange trees?”

“My name’s Sean O’Brien. I arrived twenty minutes ago looking for a friend of mine I had reason to believe might be staying here. When I arrived, the fire was burning down there, front door open, and a man’s body on the floor. I called nine-one-one.”

“I need to see some ID … slowly use one hand.”

I complied and used one hand to lift my wallet from my pocket. Two more officers approached, each positioning themselves strategically on opposite sides of me.

“Okay, Mr. O’Brien,” the first officer said. “This person you knew, why would you be trying to find her at five a.m.?”

“Because she needed help. She’s asthmatic.”

“Did you find her?” He glanced at the burning trailer for a moment.

“No, and when I got here that trailer was fully involved.”

A tall man dressed in a tweed sports coat and blue jeans approached. He wore no tie, badge clipped to his belt, eyes red and puffy, morning stubble on his thin face. “I’m Detective Lawrence.” He glanced over my shoulder to the fire. “What’d you see?”

“As I told your officers, not a lot. A dead man in the office. A snake crawling across the floor, and that trailer engulfed in flames.”

“Are you armed?”

“Yes.”

All three the officers pulled guns out of their holsters and pointed them at my chest.

Detective Lawrence said, “Interlock your fingers and put your hands behind your head.” I did so and he motioned to one of the officers. “Search and disarm him.”

The officer nodded, pulled on white cotton gloves and carefully removed the Glock from under my shirt and then patted me down. The detective said, “Why didn’t you bother to let anyone know you were carrying?”

“No one asked. I have a permit to carry that gun.”

“Not at an apparent homicide scene you don’t.”

“I’m the one who called in the shooting and the fire. And I waited for you to arrive. If I shot that vic, why would I do that?”

“Vic? Were you in law enforcement?”

“A long time ago. Homicide. Miami-Dade PD. Look, that entrance wound on the vic’s forehead was caused by a much smaller caliber gun than the Glock, especially at close range. You can check my gun. It hasn’t been fired, at least not today. Fully loaded.”

He said nothing for a few seconds, his green eyes reflecting the orange flames. “Doesn’t take but a few seconds to reload. Are you now a private investigator?”

“Nope. I’m a fisherman. I was here because a friend of the deceased thought a young woman I’m searching for might be here.”

“What’s her name?”

“Courtney Burke.”

His jaw muscles tightened. “Courtney Burke. Is she the same person suspected in the multiple deaths near Daytona?”

“She’s a person of interest.”

Then he made a disdainful grin out of one side of his mouth. “Now it’s coming into focus. You’re the Sean O’Brien who’s all over the news. The old boyfriend of Senator Logan’s wife … and Courtney Burke just might be your daughter.”

“In your business, you should know you can’t believe everything you see on cable TV.”

“Tell you what I do believe, I believe she’s wanted for serial murders.”

“She’s presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not a court of public opinion.”

He shook his head. “We’ll be taking you to the sheriff’s office to talk more about all of this. Swab him for gunshot residue, too, Wally.”

“You might want to talk with the drivers or owners of that black SUV out front. Since it’s still here, odds are the occupants could be in what’s left of that trailer. Or maybe my alleged daughter’s in there.”

He motioned with his head and two officers escorted me across the lawn, around the side of the office, and over two fire hoses, water leaking from their connections. We rounded the building and stepped into a blaze of TV news lights and reporters behind yellow crime scene tape. I heard one reporter shout, “It’s the guy who’s mixed up in the affair with Andrea Logan.”

More questions peppered me from behind outstretched microphones and the glare of lights. One of the officers opened the rear door to the police cruiser and motioned for me to enter. We drove off into golden sunlight just breaking through the tall bamboo and coconut palms, and I was without my Jeep, my Glock, and the girl who might be my daughter. If she had been staying in that trailer, any DNA proof of her existence on earth was gone as a new day dawned over the planet.