The Black Bullet

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Glenda Lawson’s home was cast in dark olive green shadows when O’Brien pulled into her driveway, which was long ago built of aged bricks. The home was turn-of-the-century old Florida: coquina stone, one story, and a tile roof the tint of rust. A large banyan tree stood in the small front yard flanked by philodendrons along one side of the home.

When O’Brien parked his Jeep and walked across the small, faded limestone blocks, the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine and magnolia blossoms escorted him to the door. He knocked once; and in the dying light, Abby Lawson opened the door and greeted him.

“Sean, I’ve been watching the news,” she said, holding her hands in front of her, fingers locked. “They say two people died … the manager of a self-storage building and the girlfriend of Jason who works on your boat. They also said Jason was kidnapped … is he …?”

“He’s alive. What your grandmother might tell me could keep him that way.”

“Please, come in.”

“I won’t be long.” O’Brien looked at the road beyond the home before entering.

Abby closed the door. “Things are happening at a frightening pace since you found that U-boat.”

“Good evening Mr. O’Brien,” said Glenda Lawson entering the living room. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Mrs. Lawson-”

“Please, dear, call me Glenda. We heard about the deaths of that poor young woman, the kidnapping of her boyfriend and the death of the storage place manager.” She was quiet a moment and said, “This is all happening because of what my Billy saw that night, isn’t it, Mr. O’Brien?”

“I think it might be connected.”

Glenda coughed once, inhaled, a wheezing sound bubbling from her lungs, and said, “Is there anything we can do for you? Please stay for supper.”

“I need to ask you some questions about the night Billy saw the U-boat.”

“Okay, but I must ask you a question first, when was the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday.”

“You look like it. Abby makes the best lasagna you’ll ever have. We just took it out of the oven half hour ago. Please join us.”

“I don’t have a lot of time-”

“Young man, if you have time to talk, you have time to eat, too. I insist.” She turned and went into the kitchen. “Come join us, don’t keep an old woman waiting.”

As Abby served lasagna, warm garlic bread, and salad, O’Brien, who was sitting across the oak table from Glenda, asked, “When your husband told you where the men had buried the cargo, what did he say? You’d mentioned the old Fort Matanzas, remember?”

“I’ve never forgotten it,” Glenda said, looking out through the glass French doors onto her small garden. Holding her gaze on the fireflies floating in the philodendron, she added, “He told me they buried it maybe two hundred feet south of the old Spanish fort. When the light from the St. Augustine lighthouse comes across the fort’s watchtower at the six o’clock position, it shines through the window. Billy said they buried something in the sand along the line of light.”

“Do you know where Billy was standing when he saw the light on the fort?”

“No.”

O’Brien was silent. “Billy told you that when the light from the St. Augustine lighthouse rotates across the fort’s watchtower at the six o’clock position and shines through the window, that’s where something is buried in sand. The watchtower would have at least two openings, observation points, for the light to shine through it. If someone were to position themselves in the general area and walk it until they see the beam from the lighthouse through the observation opening on the south side, maybe-”

“But that area has dramatically changed since 1945. There are million dollar homes through there now.”

“Two things have not changed. The fort has been there for two-hundred-sixty-six years. It hasn’t moved. Neither has the lighthouse, which has been there at least a century. I used to surf fish there. There are no homes on the island, it’s a national park. I’d have to retrace, or try to retrace Billy’s steps that night.”

Glenda said, “His truck, it would have been close to AIA. He’d park off the shoulder, under some palms, and then walk down to the surf to cast his net. He liked to fish in the area because of the inlet. Sometimes Billy would cast directly into the surf. Other times he’d fish the inlet, usually on the north side of the pass.”

“The north side is still undeveloped today. Maybe it’s still there,” O’Brien said.

“Do you think you could find it?” asked Abby.

“I have to try. The kidnappers are holding Jason.”

“I’ll pray,” Abby whispered.

O’Brien said, “They know of the possibility of the remaining uranium hidden somewhere on the beach, maybe Rattlesnake Island, the island where Fort Matanzas is located. The men holding Jason might comb the sand on the island with sophisticated metal detection equipment. The advantage I may have right now is what you’ve told me about the lighthouse, but if you can remember anything else Billy said that night, something might give me another lead.”

“I’m so sorry about the young man,” Glenda said. “Unfortunately, I’ve told you all that my husband told me. He didn’t have a lot of time to get out details.”

“I understand.”

“Maybe you can find it with the information grandma gave you.”

“I don’t know,” Glenda said. “Matanzas doesn’t give up its secrets easily. It’s a beautiful place, but it is a place of suffering and a lot of bloodshed.”

“Matanzas Inlet has quite a horrific past,” Abby said, serving more food. “Not a good story at dinner, horrendous.”

O’Brien nodded. “I remember some of the history.”

“It was where the Spanish, in 1565, slaughtered the French Huguenots.” Glenda’s eyes enlarged. “More than two-hundred-fifty settlers died. The waters of the pass ran red with their blood. Happened at the inlet on Rattlesnake Island. In Spanish, Matanzas means massacre.”

Abby said, “Years later, the fort was built by the Spanish to keep the British from entering the inlet, coming upriver and attacking the back side of St. Augustine.”

O’Brien said, “A few centuries after that, the Germans enter the inlet and, somewhere on the beach, they bury a deadly cargo. Glenda, who investigated Billy’s murder?”

“Let me see … umm … there was a young man, a FBI agent. His name was Robert Miller. Never forgot him. A nice person. Professional, but he had some sort of anxiousness about him I didn’t quite understand.”

“How do you mean?”

“Each time I asked him about the investigation he became more evasive. Finally, he stopped returning my calls. I never heard from him again. In St. Johns County, Sheriff Walker investigated it. He thought Billy was killed by a highway robber. He couldn’t explain why Billy’s truck was abandoned. Sheriff Walker died about twenty years ago. One of his deputies is still alive, I think. Deputy Brad Ford said he had kept the investigation going as long as he worked in the department, about twenty-five years. However, he never found anyone either.”

O’Brien took a bite of food. “What was the general reaction, both on the federal and local levels, when you told them about Billy’s sighting of the German sub and the burying of something on the beach?”

“They were polite but not really interested in talking with me. I never got the chance to tell them what Billy said about the beam of light from the lighthouse. A few days after my call, I was told the Navy dispatched planes but never saw the submarine. Government men said they dug all around Matanzas Inlet but only found turtle eggs buried in the sand.”

“Sean,” said Abby, “my grandfather said that the Japanese men took off running. Grandma, you never heard if the government caught them or what, right?”

“No, I didn’t, and I never saw anything in the papers. Agent Miller told me the FBI never turned up anyone.”

O’Brien was silent. He asked, “Did they do an autopsy on your husband?”

“Told me they did.”

“The newspaper report you showed me when you came to my house indicated Billy had been shot once and, yet, you said you heard three shots.”

Glenda coughed, her eyes watering. “Yes, and sometimes I still hear them.”

“Did they tell you, or did they know what kind of gun was used to kill Billy?”

“I do remember the FBI telling me it was a.38 caliber bullet that killed him.”

“Would you allow your husband’s body to be exhumed? I’d want to know if he was shot more than once and whether all the bullets were removed from the body.”

Abby bit her lower lip and sipped some wine. Glenda looked beyond the dining room to a framed picture of her husband on the wall. Billy Lawson, dressed in his Army uniform, was smiling. Forever twenty-one. “Okay,” Glenda said. “If you do find evidence of more gunshots, what do we do? What if Billy wasn’t killed by a.38 bullet?”

“Then we find out why Billy’s murder was covered up by the U.S. government.”