The Butterfly Forest

THIRTY-FIVE

Elizabeth had not brought a change of clothes. I’d left one of my clean denim shirts in the bathroom for her to wear to bed. I sat on the porch, listened to the shower running, sipped an Irish whiskey and rubbed Max’s sleepy head. I’d shown Elizabeth the guest bedroom, turned down the sheets for her, and hoped, somehow, that her emotionally frayed brain would succumb to sleep.

I knew my mind would not, at least not now. I wondered whether Marion County CSI had retrieved all the evidence they possibly could. Wherever they had found the bloodstained butterfly box, I hoped they’d combed every square inch. The rains were coming. Clues and forensics evidence would be seriously compromised. It wasn’t my case, and I was no longer a cop. But I’d just told a very frightened mother that I’d find her daughter. From an unscheduled stop at a Walmart, to a potential double murder investigation, here I was again.

I sipped the Jameson. Lightning flickered beyond the oxbow in the river, the flashes casting the tall palms in silhouette. If Molly and her boyfriend had been slaughtered in the forest, was their killer Frank Soto? Had he escaped long enough to track them down, and if so, why would he, or anyone else, want them dead? The thought of Molly’s body lying somewhere across the river, deep in the Ocala National Forest, sent an iciness between my shoulder blades. Rain on her body could wash away evidence. Maybe she was alive. Maybe the blood on the butterfly box wasn’t hers. And maybe the handprint was someone else’s.

The Irish whiskey whispered false secrets in my ear. But, for the woman lying in my guest bedroom, clutching onto any possibility of hope, for her sake, I would listen to the whispers. I would entertain illusions of optimism and delay the truth serum that propped up my guard and fought the purple dragons of fantasy.

Feeling fatigue lock in behind my eyes, I leaned back in my big whicker rocker. Max was sound asleep in my lap, and I was hoping Elizabeth had fallen asleep in the spare bedroom. It was just me, the silent flow of the black river around the cypress with its prop wash of today being carried out to sea, and the tiny winks of light from hovering fireflies signaling for the lightning to come play tag in the dark. The first drops of rain popped on the tin roof over my head. Max opened her sleepy eyes for a second, and then drifted off. I listened to the rain against the metal engulf me into the roar of a waterfall from heaven.

Luke Palmer lay beneath the plastic tarp he’d strung between two scrawny pine trees. The rain had passed and morning was taking its time getting up. He opened his eyes and watched the tawny light turn the forest into a morning of buttery colors. It was then he thought of the tree he’d seen yesterday. The two hearts stretched into wings as if the old tree had a tattoo and the lines were blurring. Ma Barker’s boy, Fred, carved ‘em, according to Karpis. Boy must have loved his mama. At least he knew her. Not everybody in this world gets that.