Lowe, Tom - Sean O'Brien 08 Read online

  “Did he tell you I did it? I had nothing to do—”

  “We ask the questions here, okay?” The man slapped his hand on the table.

  The senior detective, Edwards, leaned in closer, his voice softening. “Joe, just tell us how it went down.”

  Joe Billie said nothing.

  Edwards opened a manila file folder, lifting out a half dozen photos of the dead man. Edwards spread them on the table. “Take a look at this, Joe. This goes beyond a murder. It’s what we in homicide call a signature murder. It’s got the killer’s calling card all over it. The way the body was on display.”

  Joe glanced down at the images, his eyes rising up to meet the detective. “I didn’t kill this man.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I knew he was a grave robber.”

  Both detectives leaned in a little closer. “How so?” Edwards asked.

  “Five years ago, right before the summer Green Corn Dance, I found him on the fringe of the Seminole reservation. He had been digging in a sacred burial site. I told him to leave. At first he refused.”

  The younger detective nodded. “So you had to threaten him, right?”

  “No. He carried the bones of our ancestors in a burlap sack. I made him bury them back in the holes he had dug. Made him cover them with dirt, warned him never to return, and then I called the Seminole police.”

  “So you did threaten him?” Stinson jotted across a legal pad.

  “No. I advised him.”

  “So years later, this guy is out there diggin’ up parts of the biggest Indian mound left in Florida. You found him. It escalated into a disagreement. One thing led to another. Maybe he came at you ... only you can tell us that. You got the jump on him. Stuff happens, and then the next thing you know he’s dead. Did you scalp him because of the place, maybe the circumstances ... you know, considering how he’d desecrated Indian graves before, right?”

  “Wrong. As despicable as I find his actions, it does not justify taking his life.”

  “C’mon, man. You slit his throat! Strung him up like a deer and peeled the hair off his head as you’d skin an animal. If you’re such an exhibitionist about the murder, your handiwork, like it is some weird art, why’re you so hesitant to take the credit for a signature killing. It’s got your brand on it, Joe.”

  Billie stared at the younger detective. Unblinking.

  Edwards took the photos off the table. “Rob, why don’t you take a short break, and Joe and I will just chat. Joe, you want some coffee, a soft drink, maybe some cool water.”

  Joe Billie shook his head. “At this point, I will ask to speak with a lawyer. I did not kill that man. I have no idea who did. I have nothing else to say. Am I free to go?”

  “Hell no!” The younger detective let out a chest full of air. He got up and left, the door closing hard behind him. Detective Edwards smiled. “Joe, your Seminole heritage goes way back in Florida. I understand that. Heritage and history are big deals. I understand that this may have been self-defense. Only you can tell me that. I’m betting it started out as an argument and the end result was ... Look, this crime didn’t happen on the Seminole reservation. I’m just doing my job, but I do it with complete respect for you. You’re in some serious shit here … so if it was self-defense, an argument, that got heated and went too far, I need to know. You think on that. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  When he left, Joe Billie glanced up at the camera again, staring at the glass eye, his thoughts disappearing into the abyss, to a place far away. His mind went to a night long ago when he was a boy. After sunset, his father had taken him to visit one of the tribe’s elders, an old medicine man. They walked into the camp in the heart of the Everglades, the full moon like yellow butter through the cypress trees. They sat by a fire pit under an open-air chickee. The old man’s face was leathery, coffee bean brown, deep creases, gray hair tied back. His eyes were darker than the night, but had a twinkle in them, like distant starlight in the evening sky. In the language of the Seminole, the medicine man looked at him and said, “I will teach you how to disappear without going anywhere. You learn to do that, and you can walk across the fire pit, across the bridge into a land where no one will hurt you.”

  The medicine man chanted, sipping a black drink, the orange flames dancing in his eyes. He opened a buckskin hide, lifting out the skeletal remains of the lower jaw from a garfish, the teeth a quarter inch long. He took Joe Billie’s right arm, placing the serrated teeth against his skin and slowly drew down his arm, leaving a bloody trail.

  * * *

  Sixteen-year-old Kimi Tiger held the steak knife to her forearm, rocking the blade against her brown skin, cutting, the blood oozing from the small marks she made. She’d locked her bedroom door inside her home in the Big Cypress Indian Reservation near the Everglades. She sat on the edge of her neatly made bed, a plush bear on her pillow, a gift from her Uncle Billie when she was two.

  She looked up at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Although she had a striking face, straight black hair, high cheekbones from a gene pool that could be traced back to the Seminole War, she hated what she saw. More than that, she hated what she felt ... who she’d become. She ached to change that. To make the hurt and sorrow in her heart go away. The man told her it was her fault, and after repeated times, she began to believe him. You are nothing … you are nothing … no one will believe you …

  Her parents were in the family room watching TV, her father probably passed out from drinking. Her mother, sitting on the couch, falling asleep during the long commercial breaks. Kimi looked at her arm, tears rolling down her face and dropping into her blood. She could go deeper. She knew that. Cut into the muscle and veins. Slice into her wrist. She was not afraid. Not afraid to die. The only thing she feared was the contempt for herself that grew like a cancer, and she hated facing him again. The guilt hurt worse than the pain, the pain of living as a fractured person, living a lie for the rest of her life.

  A breeze from outside puffed the white curtain hanging in front of her window. The moon rose from behind a cloud, moonlight striking the curtain. She held the knife in her hand, trembling. She heard something—something in the large oak outside her window. There was a distinct flutter in the night air, and then a grasping of bark on the tree limbs.

  Kimi stood, moving the curtain slightly, peering outside. Under the moonlight, she could see a great horned owl in a lower limb. The owl held a dying snake in one of his claws, talons piercing the snake’s head. The bird’s yellow eyes were larger than silver quarters, unblinking, staring directly at Kimi. She made a dry swallow, her heart beating faster. Then the owl let out a sequence of loud and long hoots, never taking its eyes off her.

  Kimi’s grandmother was a member of the Bird Clan among the Seminoles. Grandmother had been a kind woman with strong but tender hands, a woman who told wonderful stories. When Kimi was eight, her grandmother died late one night. It was the same night the great owl appeared near her chickee.

  Kimi stared at the owl in the tree outside her bedroom window. She closed the curtain, set the knife down on her nightstand, wrapped a towel around her bleeding arm, and curled into a fetal position on her bed. Kimi looked over into the eyes of her old friend, Bouncy Bear, as she always called him.

  She quietly wept.

  FIVE

  The first ping came in when O’Brien was half way to Citrus County. He lifted his phone from a cup-holder in the Jeep’s console. The message was from Dave Collins.

  The second ping.

  O’Brien pulled off the shoulder of Highway 44 near Mt. Dora, stopped and read the emails. Dave wrote: Vic’s name was Lawrence Barton. DOB 9-2-60. Hometown: Tampa. A former prof of anthropology at University of Florida. Arrested four years ago for unauthorized removal of human bones from a designated gravesite – a state-protected Indian burial mound in North Florida. Author of a nonfiction book about forensic anthropology. Adjunct teacher at USF. I’ve attached his photo, a link to his book, and to recent news stori
es about the crime. Good luck –

  O’Brien looked at the photo. Lawrence Barton, Ph.D., stood in front of a gray backdrop, dressed in a sports coat and maroon tie. He appeared to have been about fifty when the picture was taken. Narrow face. Thick black eyebrows. Barton had a full head of hair, gray at the temples. O’Brien thought about the information for a moment before tapping the link to one of the news articles, looking for any mention of Joe Billie as a suspect or person of interest. There was none. Not yet. There were details of how the crime was discovered. But no mention of a suspect by name.

  The victim’s body was found by the property owner—a rancher, and four people from the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs, apparently on a site survey to examine an ancient Indian mound and the surrounding property for possible acquisition.

  O’Brien jotted down the names of the people mentioned in the article. He had a gut feeling that he’d see some, if not all of them, soon. He tapped another link to a story filed by a Tampa area television news station. The video loaded, showing a scene of three members of the county coroner’s office loading a gurney, a body covered with a white sheet, into a dark blue van.

  There were scenes of sheriff’s investigators working a crime area beyond the yellow police tape strewn from pine and cabbage palm trees in the remote setting. The reporter’s voice-over narrative said, “The victim’s body was discovered about fifty yards from here, in a clearing near a prehistoric Indian mound. Investigators aren’t releasing a lot of information just yet, however, we do know the victim was a white male. The immediate cause of death isn’t known. An autopsy will determine that. One especially grisly detail of the death has to do with the victim’s head. He apparently had been scalped either before or after he was killed. Detective Robert Edwards said the killer was definitely making a statement.”

  The news video cut to a dark-skinned man in his mid-fifties wearing suspenders over a blue shirt, his face shiny, perspiration stains on his stomach, a blowfly circling his head. “This murder is especially heinous. It indicates to us that the killer most likely knew his victim and had something personal against him. In my twenty years investigating homicides, I can’t remember one as brutal as this. It has a pagan ritual look to the crime scene. Somebody wanted to make a strong statement. And they did.”

  When asked to elaborate, the detective said he could not because he didn’t want to compromise the confidential details of the investigation. The text graphic on the screen read: Detective Robert Edwards

  O’Brien tapped a button causing the screen to go black. He placed the phone back in the drink holder. Maybe Detective Edwards is questioning Joe now, O’Brien thought, slipping his sunglasses back on and pulling his Jeep onto the highway, scattering dirt and loose gravel from the rear tires.

  SIX

  O’Brien followed his GPS map to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Department, a one story beige building with leafy queen palms planted out front in the decorative islands of dark mulch. The sky was hard blue, cloudless, heat waves shimmering off the tops of cars in the lot. He glanced at his phone screen, studying the satellite image of the property. The rear of the building bordered Cooter Lake. The sheriff’s office was a few blocks from the courthouse and maybe three miles from the county jail. Will they book Joe in that jail today?

  His mind was already moving to contingency plans. He knew Joe—knew he wouldn’t lie or be deceptive with investigators. He was almost incapable of it. He could, however, be defiant, even appearing intimidating by his stoic silence if he didn’t want to speak. O’Brien parked in one of a dozen empty visitor’s spots and entered the building, two uniformed deputies were coming out of the front door at the same time.

  He walked across a tile floor to the receptionist’s desk, manned by a blonde woman in her late twenties, dark brown at the roots, just enough hair to make a short ponytail. “Help you?” She looked up from her computer screen, the reflection of white light from her glasses.

  O’Brien smiled. “I hope so. I’m here to pick up Joe Billie. He was brought in for questioning. He needs a ride back to his home.”

  She studied O’Brien’s face for a second, as though she was trying to determine if there was a physical trait—a family connection to Joe Billie. She clicked a few keys on her keyboard, read from the screen and then picked up a black phone. “Debbie, can you check with Captain Goodwin to see if they’re still with Mr. Billie? There’s someone here to meet him.” She paused, looking up at O’Brien. “Sir, are you his attorney?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sean O’Brien.”

  She nodded and said into the phone, “No, he’s a friend … name’s Sean O’Brien … okay, thanks.” She set the phone down. “Mr. O’Brien, she’s checking with the captain.”

  “Do you know if they’ve charged Joe with anything?”

  “As far as I can tell he hasn’t been booked. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Sometimes it doesn’t show up on my screen immediately. If he’s arrested, he’ll be taken to the county jail for processing and a first appearance hearing, probably tomorrow. You can have a seat over there if you want.” She gestured to the opposite side of the lobby.

  “Thanks.” O’Brien walked across the room towards a dozen hard plastic chairs aligned against one wall. Two dusty artificial fichus plants were propped in the corners. A woman in her early forties, dark hair pinned up, eyes puffy from crying, sat in one chair, staring out the window overlooking the parking lot. O’Brien took a seat near the center of the grouping, three chairs away from the woman. He could smell the odor of cigarette smoke on her clothes and hair. He could feel the woman become tense. She sat straighter. Arms folded across her breasts. And then she said, “Channel ten is here.”

  O’Brien turned to see a television news van parking, the passenger door opening, a blonde reporter getting out. She was in her mid-twenties, iPad in one hand, wireless microphone in the other. The driver, probably her camera operator, was a short burly man, baseball hat on backward, jeans and black T-shirt. He opened the side door and took a video camera from a protective case, changing the lens and adjusting a single portable light on a mount near the front of the camera.

  The women sitting near O’Brien blew her nose into a tissue and said, “That looks like Valarie Henson from Channel Ten. My ex-husband always liked her. Wonder what they’re doin’ here? Maybe something big happened.”

  O’Brien nodded. “Maybe. Usually you’ll find them at the courthouse after someone is charged with a crime.”

  The woman angled her head, brow furrowing, considering what O’Brien said. She stuffed the tissue into a small red purse. “Yeah, that’s where you usually see ‘em doin’ the news from the courthouse steps. Maybe they’re here to interview the sheriff.”

  * * *

  Detective Robert Edwards left Joe Billie alone. The detective ambled down the hall, past other investigators and uniformed deputies. He found his partner, Ron Stinson, pouring a cup of coffee and then emptying three packs of sugar into the paper cup. He stirred and asked, “So he wants to get all lawyered up. Did he say anything else?”

  “No. He just stared at the wall. For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure if he was even breathing. Like he’d slipped into some kinda yoga thing. If he did do it, and I believe he did, the man shows no fear. No remorse. Nothing. Ice water in his veins. Could be psychotic. We know he had a history with the vic. That’s big. We’ll find something tangible, and that’ll be the nail that will send Mr. Billie to a hot pillow lethal injection.”

  “Maybe our Indian friend would be willing to take a polygraph.”

  “Don’t bet the farm on it. We’ll find physical evidence. In the meantime, we’ll cut him loose and keep a close eye on where he goes and what he does.”

  “Forensics went over his truck with a fine-tooth comb. So far nothing—no blood, mud, fibers, hair or anything directly connected to the crime scene. They’ll keep analyzing bits and pieces. They did find a black feather with
a dried substance on the tip. We’ll see if there’s a DNA match.”

  “We’ll find something physical. I can feel it like a bad storm comin’ in the night.”

  * * *

  O’Brien stood from his chair in the lobby as the double doors behind the reception desk opened and Joe Billie walked into the room, escorted by two plainclothes detectives. O’Brien recognized one of them from the video news story he’d watched. Billie locked eyes with O’Brien, a slight nod. The bulky detective turned to Billie and said, “You can claim your truck in the back lot. We’ll see you again. Have a nice day.”

  O’Brien stood and walked across the room just as the detectives were leaving. He said, “Gentlemen.”

  They both turned toward him.

  “I’m Sean O’Brien.” He extended his hand.

  “I’m Detective Edwards. This is my partner, Rob Stinson. What can we do for you, Mr. O’Brien?”

  “I’ve been in your position more times than I care to recall.”

  “How’s that?” Edwards asked.

  “I worked homicide, Miami-Dade.”

  Both men eyed O’Brien. Silent. He said, “I know you are doing your job. I only wanted to say I’ve known Joe Billie for a long time. Out of seven billion people on the planet, I’m willing to bet he’s one of the most honest. He’s not your perp. If he killed the victim, Joe would turn himself in to you. I know you can only follow the evidence, and unless something was planted, you won’t find anything pointing to Joe.”

  Edwards rocked on the soles of his wingtip shoes for a few seconds. He glanced at the news crew in the parking lot. “We appreciate you vouching for your friend, but if you worked homicide in Miami, we don’t have to tell you people do damn strange things. Everybody has a breaking point. Maybe something happened out there in the jungles that made your pal snap. You also know we can’t discuss an ongoing case with you. Nice meeting you.”