Detective Lawrence said, “Interlock your fingers and put your hands behind your head.” I did so and he motioned to one of the officers. “Search and disarm him.”
The officer nodded, pulled on white cotton gloves and carefully removed the Glock from under my shirt and then patted me down. The detective said, “Why didn’t you bother to let anyone know you were carrying?”
“No one asked. I have a permit to carry that gun.”
“Not at an apparent homicide scene you don’t.”
“I’m the one who called in the shooting and the fire. And I waited for you to arrive. If I shot that vic, why would I do that?”
“Vic? Were you in law enforcement?”
“A long time ago. Homicide. Miami-Dade PD. Look, that entrance wound on the vic’s forehead was caused by a much smaller caliber gun than the Glock, especially at close range. You can check my gun. It hasn’t been fired, at least not today. Fully loaded.”
He said nothing for a few seconds, his green eyes reflecting the orange flames. “Doesn’t take but a few seconds to reload. Are you now a private investigator?”
“Nope. I’m a fisherman. I was here because a friend of the deceased thought a young woman I’m searching for might be here.”
“What’s her name?”
“Courtney Burke.”
His jaw muscles tightened. “Courtney Burke. Is she the same person suspected in the multiple deaths near Daytona?”
“She’s a person of interest.”
Then he made a disdainful grin out of one side of his mouth. “Now it’s coming into focus. You’re the Sean O’Brien who’s all over the news. The old boyfriend of Senator Logan’s wife … and Courtney Burke just might be your daughter.”
“In your business, you should know you can’t believe everything you see on cable TV.”
“Tell you what I do believe, I believe she’s wanted for serial murders.”
“She’s presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not a court of public opinion.”
He shook his head. “We’ll be taking you to the sheriff’s office to talk more about all of this. Swab him for gunshot residue, too, Wally.”
“You might want to talk with the drivers or owners of that black SUV out front. Since it’s still here, odds are the occupants could be in what’s left of that trailer. Or maybe my alleged daughter’s in there.”
He motioned with his head and two officers escorted me across the lawn, around the side of the office, and over two fire hoses, water leaking from their connections. We rounded the building and stepped into a blaze of TV news lights and reporters behind yellow crime scene tape. I heard one reporter shout, “It’s the guy who’s mixed up in the affair with Andrea Logan.”
More questions peppered me from behind outstretched microphones and the glare of lights. One of the officers opened the rear door to the police cruiser and motioned for me to enter. We drove off into golden sunlight just breaking through the tall bamboo and coconut palms, and I was without my Jeep, my Glock, and the girl who might be my daughter. If she had been staying in that trailer, any DNA proof of her existence on earth was gone as a new day dawned over the planet.
49
I owed the lady in red a debt of gratitude. Two hours into answering the same questions from three detectives, a fourth came in from the field. He was pushing retirement, early sixties, jowls like a basset hound, and drowsy eyes with a touch of cataracts in one. He sat with me in the interrogation room and related her story. Gladys Johnston, the woman in the red bathrobe, had been shooting video on her mobile phone, video of the roaring fire near Bullfrog Creek.
And it was video that happened to capture my arrival, after the fire, and after two men had appeared at least fifteen minutes before me.
Gladys, a former trapeze artist who worked in circuses around the nation, told police that her world now was her close-knit community. As captain of her Neighborhood Watch, she knew everyone. She didn’t know the two men who got out of the black Escalade. Strangers in dark clothes. Years earlier, a trapeze accident had caused damage to Gladys’s back. At 5:00 a.m. today she was at the kitchen sink sipping water and taking aspirin for an old injury when she noticed a car quietly pull up to Show Time Fish Camp with its headlights off. It was hot and her window at the sink had been open, a breeze coming through the screen. Gladys told detectives that when she didn’t see the dome interior light come on as the men got out of the SUV, didn’t hear them slam the doors, her radar came on.
And when they started picking the lock, she went to wake up her sleeping husband.
I was glad for Gladys and me. I was getting my Glock back and Jeep returned, but I had no indication that Courtney Burke had been living in the trailer park. As I started to leave the sheriff’s department, the senior detective said, “I found out about your history with Miami-Dade PD. Did you ever know Gus Mansfield?”
“I remember that he was a guy with great investigative instincts. I didn’t actually work with his division, but I knew of his talents.”
“We worked together in Detroit until we got tired of the cold and corruption. Came south. Gus was a bird dog ‘til he got hit in a crossfire with the Colombian Cartel. Now he’s in a wheelchair.” His eyes drifted around the room for a few seconds. He blinked hard and stood from the chair. “We need to get you out the back entrance. Get your car from the compound and avoid all those damn reporters in the lobby and parking lot.”
“I appreciate it.”
“When I came in, must have been more than two dozen news media hounds out there. All of ‘em got their sights set on you. C’mon, you’ve been here long enough.” He stopped on his way to the door. “Oh, by the way. Don’t know if anybody’s told you this, but the coroner pulled two bodies from that fire.”
I felt my pulse quicken.
He shook his head. “Burned beyond any sort of recognition. Don’t even know if they’ll be able to get dentals.”
“Can they determine gender?”
“Looks to be what’s left of two men. Probably the perps who broke into the Fish Camp office. I hope the poor bastards died in the explosion and didn’t burn to death. They’re crispy critters now.” He sighed and led me down the hallway to the rear exit.
I shook his hand asked, “Did forensics find anything near the body of the dwarf?”
“A damn big snake. Talk about weird blood trails — try tracking a snake that crawled through a bloody crime scene. The perps, though, left nothing. Vehicle they arrived in was wiped clean or they wore gloves. It was a rental — prepaid, cash. Non-traceable credit card number. Whoever they were, even if we could ID the bodies, we’d be hard-pressed to follow the bread trail to where the kill order came from.” He looked at me curiously for a second. “I know you said you were hunting for the girl. Looks like somebody wanted to find her as much as you do. How did the two dead guys know or believe she was there?”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about since you told me the two bodies were found.”
“No one we questioned at the trailer park remembers seeing the girl.” He paused and undid his burgundy tie with a small coffee stain near the knot. “I hope you find her first. I got a bad feeling in these old bones that some ruthless sons-of-bitches are looking for her. Good luck to you. Here’s the keys to your Jeep. It’s parked in the row closest to the building.”
I drove a perimeter road around the sheriff’s office and the adjacent county courthouse. I looked to my right before getting on the highway and almost did a double-take. I counted more than eight satellite news trucks anchored in front of the building, open dishes aimed to the sky, supposition aimed at the masses.