Blood of Cain

62

He squatted down, a toothpick wedged in the corner of his mouth. Dan Grant removed his sunglasses and said, “Okay. You wanna tell me what the hell happened? Neighbors said it sounded like a shootout at the OK Corral.”

“Dan, the paramedics need to get in there. We’re the victims, and she’s injured.”

“Soon as my men give the all clear, the EMT guys can have at it.”

“See those drops of blood near the tip of your shoes?”

“I do.”

“There’s your DNA sample. More in the foyer. I hit one of the perps as they were trying to splatter my brains all over one wall. The woman inside, is Kim Davis. Employed at the marina. Runs the Tiki Bar Restaurant. Extractors — men used to get information from people, were sent here.”

“Why would someone do that? What does this woman have or know that’s worth this … this mess?”

One of the SWAT members stepped from the door. “Sir, it’s clear. Vic needs medical attention.”

Detective Grant said looked at the ambulance crew. “It’s all yours, gentlemen.” The paramedics hustled across the walkway, moving a gurney and medical cases inside the house. Grant signaled to an officer. “Help Mr. O’Brien up, please. And take the bracelets off.”

The officer nodded. He removed the cuffs and I stood. Dan glanced at me and motioned with his head for me to follow him. He stepped in the shade of the banyan tree. “Okay, Sean, start at the top. What went down?”

I told him most of what I knew, but not everything I suspected. He tossed the toothpick into the hedges and said, “Do you think this goes all the way up to Senator Logan?”

“Yes. Maybe not every strategic move, but his handlers aren’t doing this without his knowledge, and they probably have his blessing.”

“And none of this would be happening if you and his current wife hadn’t hooked up twenty years ago. I wouldn’t be looking for a suspected serial killer, and Senator Logan could run a clean campaign, assuming that’s even possible. Funny how life works out.”

“Courtney is a victim, Dan — like Kim is … they just haven’t found Courtney yet.”

“Sorry, I’m a little fuckin’ dumbfounded over all this happening in my county. I’ll speak with Miss Davis. Get her description of the perps. We’ll get a DNA sample from the blood and check CODIS for a possible match. We’ll notify all area hospitals to be on the lookout for a gunshot victim.”

“His DNA won’t show up in any national database. You won’t find their prints in there, and you won’t find him being treated at a local hospital. You’re not going to discover evidence or an ID — just like Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office couldn’t find with the two bodies they pulled out of the burning trailer in Gibtown.”

“So you’re saying these soldiers don’t officially exist in any government records system.”

“Not under their real names.”

Dan loosened his tie and crossed his arms. I glanced at the dozen or so neighbors milling around behind the crime scene tape and said, “She’s going to need police protection until I can direct the focus off her. Can you spare the manpower?”

“It’ll be easier to do if she’s hospitalized.”

“That may be a given.”

“I’ll speak with her inside the house or at the hospital.” He turned to go in Kim’s home, then looked back at me. “Oh, Sean. You might want to return phone calls. The reason I’d called was to tell you that the guy you wanted me to interview, Smitty. We finally located him.”

“Where?”

“County morgue. Two teenagers found his body in the woods where they were riding dirt bikes. He’d been shot twice in the head. Bandini may not have found Courtney, but I’d say he sure found this guy.” He turned and walked inside. The air was filled with the staccato of clipped language coming from police radios juxtaposed with the hum of honeybees darting in and out of the pink trumpet flowers.

The paramedics rolled Kim from her home, the wheels on the gurney vibrating along the sidewalk. I followed them to the back of the ambulance. Kim looked up at me and said, “Thank you for getting here when you did.” She reached for my hand. “How did you know — how did you know I needed help?”

“I put some pieces together. They’d planted a bug on Jupiter.”

A wide-shouldered paramedic said, “We have to go, sir.”

Kim moaned. “Be careful, Sean. I’m more afraid for you and Courtney than I am for myself.”

I nodded and released her hand. They lowered the gurney, lifted it, and slid Kim effortlessly into the ambulance. Two paramedics climbed in with her. Right before they closed the door, she looked at me and tried to give a heartfelt smile, the kind that always came so naturally to her. But it was a fearful smile. She lifted her trembling hand to wave goodbye, her fingers like the wings of a young bird that had fallen from the nest, struggling to catch the wind, but lacking the physical and inner strength to get off the ground.

I thought about that, watching the ambulance growing smaller in the distance, thought about the bottomless abuse of power by the bottom feeders gorging on the feedbag of greed while plowing scars into the souls of others, justified for the purported good of the masses, when it was really all about them.

I walked back to my Jeep, passing the banyan tree, a strangler fig encircled around the tree with vines thick as a broomstick. I paused for a second, the feeling was like walking by an old portrait in an art museum, the eyes in the painting giving the illusion of movement, following the viewer. There appeared to be an image formed against the tree trunk by the pattern of the vines. They’d grown and molded into a symmetrical but aged shape of a face — the face of a very old woman alive in the sap of the vines, her hair like snakes twisted and sprouting from the head of Medusa.