The Butterfly Forest

FORTY-EIGHT

After leaving Elizabeth’s house, I picked up Max and we drove over to Ponce Marina. The closer we got closer to the Tiki Bar, the brighter Max’s eyes would shine. She stood on her hind legs in the Jeep’s front seat, poked her wet nose out the open window and sniffed the salt air.

I thought about leaving Elizabeth’s home earlier. A dozen people, neighbors and friends, came by her house in the short time I was there. Most were in tears. All were at a loss for the right words. But what are the right words when you learn someone blew a hole through a young woman’s left breast leaving an exit wound out her back the size of your fist?

Elizabeth promised me she’d stay with her sister until Frank Soto was found. She didn’t think it was necessary since Luke Palmer was in jail, her mind still wrapped around him being the killer.

Maybe she was right. But until Frank Soto was locked up, I felt Elizabeth was still in danger. Before I left, she handed Molly’s camera to me and said, “Please call me if you find anything. I don’t care what time it is, Sean, please call.”

Max whined once when we stopped in the marina parking lot, her nose now catching the smells of fried shrimp, broiled grouper and beer. We walked by the bar, and I saw Kim Davis pulling a draught beer for a charter boat captain I recognized. Kim smiled and said, “Sean O’Brien and Miz Max.” She petted Max and then looked up at me. “Sean, your face was on the news, Channel Nine, in the middle of that forest. Those college kids… what in God’s name is going on?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

“They caught the guy that did it, didn’t they? Some ex prisoner, a drifter?”

“They caught a man.”

Her eyes searched mine. “Don’t you think he did it?”

“I don’t know. I have some work to do that could eliminate him.”

“Leave Max here. Nicky always does. I have no problem with her hanging out to catch some pieces of shrimp. Everyone gets a kick at how fast she catches them. They never hit the floor.” She turned to the charter boat captain. “You have any problem with Max hanging with us?”

He sipped his beer, foam clinging to his moustache, face pinched from sun and salt. “Hells bells no. I could use the dog’s company. We’ll drink to the color of a fine sunset.”

I smiled and said, “I may take you up on that soon, but right now, Max needs her regular dog food, and I have to spend time in front of a computer.”

I opened Jupiter, Max sniffing all corners, the tide tugging at the lines. We entered the galley where I popped the top off a cold Corona. I attached Molly’s camera to my computer and begin looking through the array of images. Most were of her friends, snapshots around the college campus. Girls smiling, hugging and holding frozen yogurt drinks up in a toast. Some images were of a touch football game in a park. Young men and women in cut-off shorts, jerseys and T-shirts. Images of vibrant life forever sealed in a dead girl’s camera. Molly and Mark were in some of the pictures.

Max cocked her head. She suppressed a bark while she trotted across the wooden floor in the salon and darted out onto the cockpit. “Hotdog! Where you been, girl?”

Nick Cronus, wearing a faded swimsuit, unbuttoned Hawaiian print shirt, tattered flip-flops, and a bottle of beer in hand, eased across the transom and grunted. He knelt down and scooped up Max in one hand. She licked his three-day stubble. “I wish all the ladies miss me like Maxie does.” Nick walked in the salon and belched. Max turned her head away, looked toward me with wide, pleading eyes. “Sean, I was watchin’ the TV in Dave’s boat, and we saw all that shit goin’ down in the forest. Man, you go lookin’ for a tattoo joint and find a serial killer.”

“Like you said, Nick, sometimes shit happens.”

He flopped on the sofa, set Max beside him, propped his feet up on my shellacked cypress table and shook his head. He took a long pull from the sweating bottle, his dark face shining with trapped heat and the blush of alcohol. “Why does it happen to you?”

“It doesn’t. It happened to three kids. I was simply in a Walmart lot and noticed something out of the ordinary. It’s hard to get away from all those years of training.”

He stared at my computer for a moment. “What’s all those pictures?”

“They came from Molly Monroe’s camera.”

“I saw the picture of the butterfly you sent to Dave. He called one of his professor pals and learned a lot about it.” Nick drained the last sip in his beer, rubbed Max’s head with a callused hand and headed toward the galley. “Got any beer in there?”

“Help yourself.” I scrolled through the images on Molly’s camera. I stopped. Here was the first picture, an image I knew came from the Ocala National Forest. Well composed. Good light. In the frame were the same plants, the coonties, which I had spotted in the forest. But these looked like they were in a different location. It was a wide shot with enormous oaks in the backdrop. The plants I’d found were near some tall pines. I looked at the next three photos. More images of coonties, and a picture of Mark kneeling beside the plants. There was another wide shot, more dense oaks. Something was behind the oaks. I enlarged the photo.

Bingo!

It was unmistakable. In the background, beyond the oaks, beyond the coonties were plants not native to the forest.

Marijuana.