The Butterfly Forest

FIFTY-ONE

Nick and Dave fixed plates of grilled snook, snapper, and Greek peppers covered with tomatoes and feta cheese. I picked up my cell and stepped out onto the cockpit as Nick shouted, “Sean, you gotta eat, man. You can’t let this fish get cold.”

“Keep it warm for me, Nick.” I called Sheriff Clayton and told him about the photos and the marijuana plants. “I’m not sure where the pot plants are, but I’d imagine they’re not far from the coontie plants Molly and Mark found.”

“Look, O’Brien, we’ve got Luke Palmer in for triple murder. I just gave a news conference.”

“And now you can give an update.”

“I told everybody from CNN to the networks that blood found on Palmer’s clothes, clothes found in his backpack, matched blood from the deer in the grave with Mark and Molly. And it does.”

“Sheriff—”

“O’Brien, the bits and pieces of vomit we found near the grave of the other girl, Nicole Davenport, matched Palmer’s DNA.”

“He admitted he vomited when he saw her in the grave.”

“Maybe he puked after he put her in the grave. He could have been coming off a drunk. Who the fuck knows what makes psychopaths tick? Maybe he got off killing her, but had some kind of guilt complex and tossed his cookies.”

“A psychopath is incapable of a guilt complex.”

“Whatever, but the bottom line is we have this perp locked up, and he’s going to stay that way.”

“I’m e-mailing the photos to you, Sheriff. If the guy in the photo is not Palmer, it may be the man Palmer said pulled the trigger on Molly and Mark.”

“I believe Palmer made that up. He’s probably working with Soto as some kind of security detail. That explains why Soto went after Molly Monroe. Palmer happened to be the one that cut down these kids when they came back to the forest because they thought Soto was locked up.”

“And since Soto escaped, he could have easily returned to the forest, made a connection with the growers and did the murders. Palmer may be nothing more than a witness, a guy out of prison simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“That’s all speculation, O’Brien. And I can’t put much stock in an ex con, a guy who’s been out of San Quentin less than two months, hiking around a national forest, communing with nature while he’s hunting for Civil War shit, like he says he was doing.”

“He needs to be given a reasonable chance to make bond.”

“And what damn chance did he give these kids?”

“I knew Molly when she was alive. I saw her when she was dead, lifted out of that worm-infested shit hole. That’s the first place I’d like to see Palmer go if he killed them. If he didn’t, and if you rush into a seemingly clear-cut case because it’s easier to do, you’re doing Molly, Mark and Nicole a disservice, big as the one you’d shove up Palmer’s ass because it’s convenient.”

“That’s enough! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A man spent eleven years on Florida’s death row because of me. He came within minutes of having a hot needle in his arm. And it was all because the evidence was too easy. I went against my better judgment, relying more on physical forensics than what was obvious — an innocent man was framed.”

“Nobody’s framing Palmer.”

“How do you know?”

“We pulled him outta the fuckin’ river. You were there, remember? I’m hanging up, O’Brien.”

“Are you getting deputies in the forest to look for the marijuana field?”

“We’ve got the killer. We’ve found plenty of marijuana and meth labs out there. But it’s been awhile, not since Aileen Wuornos, that we had us a triple murderer.”

“And what if you have the wrong man?”

“That’s up to a jury.”

“I’m e-mailing the photographs to you. If you get deputies and a team of searchers in the forest tomorrow morning to find that marijuana field, you might find Soto and whoever stood near him in the picture. Sheriff, listen! Please—”

He hung up as Max trotted from the galley to the cockpit. Her snout was wet with olive oil. She cocked her head at me, eyes bright. “Max, was I shouting?” I looked at my hand still gripping the phone, knuckles white. One message was left while I had been speaking with the sheriff. I played it. “Sean, this is Elizabeth. Molly’s funeral is set for Monday at two o’ clock. Can you be there?”

I sat on the transom railing and looked up into the night sky. Max walked over to me. I lifted her and pointed to the brightest star, Sirius. “Twinkle, twinkle little star, Max. What do you say that we make a wish together? Let’s wish that they’d prove who was responsible for those murders. You know why? Because he’ll probably kill again. I fear for Elizabeth, and I’m not convinced the man sitting in the Marion County jail killed her daughter. If they don’t follow the leads to track down who did this, I’ll—”

Something in the sky caught Max’s eye. A meteor burst from the eastern hemisphere rushing toward the west, its fiery tail carving the heart out of the blackness. It disappeared in the western horizon toward the national forest, a place that now felt like the darkest valley in the universe.

And I knew I was about to walk through it.