The Butterfly Forest

TWENTY-TWO

Any illusions I had of sailing through the Florida Keys melted somewhere in the fantasy balcony of my mind as I came around a curve on Highway 40 and saw a police search helicopter flying above the treetops. In the distance, I saw two sheriff’s cruisers turn down a spur road leading into the Ocala National Forest. I could drive by, or make the turn. Choices — bad decisions that can haunt you for life, and all from making wrong turns. As I approached the dirt road, I slowed, thought about Elizabeth and Molly. Screw it. I hooked the turn, dirt and rocks flying up against the trees.

Sunset spilled through tree branches, shafts of golden twilight penetrating the dark woods in pockets of flickering light. I kept far behinds the cruisers, catching the pulse of red and blue lights through the moving flash of green leaves and branches slapping against the Jeep. The road led on for three miles. It emptied into a wider dirt road. I saw that most of the tire tracks were to the right, or west, toward what was left of a sunset. I drove another two miles, followed the noise of two helicopters — one operated by law enforcement, the second operated by a television news crew.

Another half mile and I saw five cruisers, emergency vehicles and one ambulance parked in a quarter-circle around a large oak. I pulled over, parking my Jeep behind two unmarked crown vics. As I started toward the crime scene, the police helicopter flew low heading toward the interior of the forest. The prop blast stirred up small dust devils over the dry roadbed. I walked around a dark green Department of Interior truck, wet mud in the tire tread and caked on the wheels.

Both back doors on the ambulance were wide open. Officers and forensics investigators worked the scene, along with three detectives, the constant sputter of police radios jarring in this place of trees and silence. I watched as two paramedics lifted a gurney, the white sheet pulled from head to toe. Protruding from beneath the folds in the sheet was the tip of her clothes, a cream-colored dress maybe.

I went closer, kept near the trees and watched as investigators took pictures and filled bags with dirt. Then I saw something that made my stomach tighten.

Two wings. They looked fragile. Delicate. A man wearing gloves lifted the wings from the grave. They were a royal purple trimmed in shades of gold and green. They were broken wings. I thought of the image on Inkman’s wall — the image on Soto’s arm. The strobe of police lights — white, blue and red, spilled across the wings as the investigator examined them. In the heavy twilight, they reflected light like a canyon delivers echoes, haunting, distant, physically there but yet somewhere else.

Two plainclothes detectives were questioning a man wearing a forest ranger’s uniform. A time like this was the only moment I missed carrying my badge. All access permitted. Now it was hard to get through the stage door. I stepped around a green forestry truck and lifted the yellow police tape. I approached the crime scene as I’d done with hundreds like it in the thirteen years I worked homicide for Miami-Dade PD.

“Can I see some ID?” The question came from a rookie officer who stepped over to me with a notepad in one hand and pen in the other.

“I’m a consultant,” I said nodding.

“Consultant?”

“Working with Detective Sandberg. Where is he?”

“Umm, he’s on the other side of the ambulance talking to someone.”

“Thanks, Officer Davenport.” He glanced down at his name badge as I walked around the ambulance.

The detective I assumed was Sandberg seemed to be ending a conversation with a man in a park service ranger’s uniform. They shook hands and the detective walked over to three members of the forensics team. Two women carried paper bags of evidence, loading them into the back of an unmarked car. One investigator handled clear plastic bags that looked to carry dirt and partially digested food. They seemed to be in deep discussions, oblivious to me, so I walked up to the man in the park uniform.

He was tall. Could look me in the eye, which he did. Probably outweighed me by twenty pounds. He had a hawkish face, with dark bushy eyebrows, and eyes to match. His name pin read: Ed Crews. He introduced himself as a district ranger, and said he had worked the Ocala National Forest for seven years.

“Did you find the body?” I asked.

“I saw buzzards circling. Wondered what had died, so I stopped my truck on the service road and found her in that hole.” He pointed to an excavated grave under a large live oak. He said, “What a shame. Just a kid. We have coyotes in the national forest. I thought maybe one of them had been digging up the body, but I’m not sure.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, about an hour before I saw the vultures, I’d spotted a guy on foot. He was a guy I’d seen in the forest earlier, an ex con. Said he was looking for Civil War artifacts. A little while ago, he was walking like he was in a hurry. Older guy. White hair. He had a water jug tied to his belt, carried a backpack, and some kind of steel rod. I just mentioned this to Detective Sandberg.”

“What’d the rod look like?”

“Like the T rods that septic guys use to probe for concrete tanks in the ground.”

“Did you stop and question him the second time you saw him?”

“Started to, we try to keep the squatters out of here, but it’s like trying to patrol the border between Mexico and the U.S., almost impossible. It looked like he was on his way out, and I wanted to see what had died. We have a hell of a problem with poachers killing deer. Sometimes they’ll wound the deer and it’ll take a few hours to die. Then the vultures start circling.”

“Did you see any animal tracks, you know, coyote imprints at the gravesite?”

“After I leaned over and stared into that hole, and saw the face of the young girl, I ran back to my truck. Radioed headquarters, and waited in my truck ‘til police got here.” He gestured to his green truck, the side of a door marked U. S. Dept of Forestry. “I’ve been here for almost two hours, and I tell you one thing, I’m ready to get home.”

I smiled. “Bet you are. Hey, thanks.”

“Sure.”

“And who the hell are you?” came the question from a voice behind me.

I turned around and looked into the hard eyes of Detective Ed Sandberg.