“At your service, Courtney.”
“How’d you know my name?”
“I knew of your description from my dear friend Isaac. I figured you have to be Courtney Burke. I’m Boots Langley. Don’t let my size trick you. Although I don’t have Samson’s girth or prowess, I do have his inner strength, or so I’ve been told.”
“What kind of snake is that?”
“A ball python. She’s an albino. That’s why her eyes are red as rubies. I was just about to feed Sheba a fat rat. Would you like to watch? Most people do like to watch, you know. They say they don’t, but in reality they enjoy seeing the life literally squeezed from vermin. Maybe it’s the shrieks from the dying rat, too. Would the same sentiment prevail if the dinner was … umm … a cat, the natural-born adversary of the mouse?”
“I hope not. I love cats.”
“But do cats love you? Is the feline brain capable of emotional attachment, let alone love? We humans perform janitorial work for cats, and what is their reciprocity, beyond sitting atop a piano and refusing to socialize unless it’s caused by a culinary bribe. ALF was one of my favorite TV shows.”
“Isaac said you were a little different?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Courtney smiled.
“Isaac told me what happened. How does a young woman like you get in the middle of not one, but two killings? You seem like a dove. Are you a hawk at heart?”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
Boots studied her for a moment, his eyes impish. “One of the former police chiefs in Gibtown used to say ‘sometimes some people needed a good killing.’ He kept the peace quite efficiently, I do recall. And he was shorter than me.” Boots’ tongue flickered once through his pursed lips like the snake around his shoulders.
Courtney blew out a breath. “Maybe I should go someplace else.”
“Butterfly, where are you going to go? As long as you weren’t followed, this is a great place to hide out. And you will, by no means, be the first seeking refugee here from the long arm of the law. Isaac told me Carlos Bandini is looking for you, too. I’d be more concerned about him than the police. Come, child. And since I’m older than dinosaur dirt, I can say that. I’ll show you your castle, not by the sea. But by a place known as Bullfrog Creek.”
Boots led Courtney through a curtain of multi-colored beads hanging in a doorway. They walked down a short hallway and onto a screened-in back porch overlooking a wide creek at the end of a long, sloping yard. Inside the enclosure was a rattan table and two chairs. Blooming petunias grew from three hanging baskets. A television, tuned to CNN, sat on a small wicker table in front of a brown rattan couch. In one corner, a large white cockatoo perched on a T-stand dropped a strawberry, and started barking like a dog.
Courtney smiled. “That bird … I heard barking just like that when I was walking up to the door. I thought it was a big dog. That’s amazing.”
Boots smiled, his eyes playful. “Shhh, don’t let her hear that she’s not a dog. I had a Rottweiler for six years. Clementine, up there on her perch, sounds identical to my sweet Eve before her untimely death.”
Courtney looked at the snake, its eyes trained on the cockatoo rocking back and forth on the stand. “What happened to your dog?”
“The serpent got to her.”
“What? Your snake?”
“No, not Sheba, of course. It was a moccasin down by the creek. The serpent struck Eve on her chest. It was sort of a debauched homecoming in a post-Eden kind of way, I suppose.” He stroked the snake’s head. “I worked circuses, carnivals, and sideshows for fifty years. I bought this property in 1975 with the intent to retire here, rent out a few trailers, fish, and watch sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico.” He pointed to an Airstream trailer down by the creek. “That trailer is yours. It’s the most remote one I have. Sits less than twenty feet from the creek. Stay as long as you want. Isaac vouches for you, and that’s more than good enough for me.”
“Thank you.”
“Just be mindful of water moccasins. Especially at night.”
As they turned to walk out the door, a news anchor on CNN said, “In Florida, police have a manhunt underway for a young woman who is a suspect in two murder cases. Both are involving carnival workers who were killed. Police are searching for nineteen-year-old Courtney Burke, last seen at the county fairgrounds not far from Daytona Beach. Investigators haven’t officially confirmed whether she’s also a suspect in the deaths of two more carnival workers earlier this year. If so, she would be one of the youngest female serial killers in the nation’s history.”
Courtney stared at the TV screen. “Oh my God! That’s so wrong. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
“Come, I need to hear your story. You’ll be safe for a while here. But people talk. Stay in your trailer as much as possible. Another thing, if you ever hear Clementine barking real fast, consider that a warning. She has a slow bark which you heard when you were arriving. Her fast bark is when danger is closer. She may be able to imitate sounds, but in her tiny bird brain she has a sixth sense about real threats. Heed her warning.”
25
Two hours after I left The Villages, I was pulling in the Ponce Marina parking lot. I shut off the Jeep’s engine and could smell the coming of rain in the humid air. The entire drive I’d thought about what Andrea Logan told me. A daughter.
My daughter, maybe.
Now a grown woman. My gut was churning. After the deaths of my parents, there was no biological family left. Period. My wife, Sherri, and I had talked about children. When she began her long fight with ovarian cancer, it was never discussed again. And now … and now what? How could I miss someone I never knew existed? Maybe it was the absolute knowledge of a daughter’s physical being — her life, the absence of shared experiences, the total emptiness of a cancelled twenty-year flight to the moon and back with a little girl who I never knew lived in the same universe. How could I sit here in my Jeep, listening to the ticking of the cooling engine, and feel a coldness in my heart for circumstances that were truly beyond my control?
Fat raindrops began to flatten across the Jeep’s window, and then a hard rain fell. I watched the water sluice from the leaves of banana plants growing near the Tiki Bar, puddles rising in low spots across the parking lot. How did the void of an unknown father-daughter relationship cause me to feel pain from a wound that was never self-inflicted? Until now. It wasn’t physical. Purely a wound of the heart, a mourning for the lost years, the hugs, butterfly kisses, ball games, school plays, the unconditional bond between a father and daughter that has no expiration date.
As a homicide detective, I learned to look closely at patterns, patterns of human behavior, and patterns of physical and forensic evidence. Very few things in the nature of crime were coincidental. Human influence always creates spin on the cue ball of fate. Was it a coincidence that Courtney Burke popped into my life? Was it a coincidence that I found out about Andrea’s pregnancy?
Was Courtney Burke my daughter?
I didn’t know. But I did know that come hell or high water, I’d find out. And then what would I do in view of the circumstances of late? I had no idea. Slay one dragon at a time, unless they come in pairs.
There was a tap against the Jeep’s side window. Kim Davis stood there under a large black umbrella. I opened the door and she said, “Hi, Sean. Thought I’d come rescue you. Saw your Jeep pull up a while ago.”
I got out and ducked under the umbrella. “Thank you. Looks like the storm is sitting right on top of us.”
She smiled, the mist from the blowing rain wetting her chestnut hair. She pulled a dark strand behind her right ear and looked up at me as I wrapped my hand around hers to steady the umbrella in the wind and rain. “C’mon, Sean, let’s go jump in the puddles.” She put her left hand in the small of my back and playfully nudged me toward a large puddle, the thump of rain hard against the umbrella.