Tom Lowe - The 24th Letter

As O’Brien walked by the bar, the only customer sitting was an older man wearing a Jim Beam baseball cap and nursing a sweating bottle of Budweiser at 9:00 a.m. He glanced up as O’Brien stepped down the length of the bar and exited. The man said, “I’ll be damned. That feller on TV just walked out the door. Call the law, Jesse.”

The waitress who’d served O’Brien approached. She watched O’Brien get in his car. “He’s a good tipper. Don’t call the po’lese. But, maybe there’s a big reward.”

O’Brien’s car pulled away from the lot and she said, “Hand me the portable, Jesse.”

O’Brien glanced up in his rearview mirror when he pulled his car onto Highway A1A. The police cruiser remained parked in the Waffle House lot as O’Brien rounded a curve. He dialed Special Agent Lauren Mile’s cell number. “Things have intensified a little. Did you get your lab tech to come in this morning?”

“Sean, I almost spit my orange juice out when I saw your picture in the Herald. And who was that woman-that girl? And yes, as a favor, the tech is in today.”

“It’s a story longer than I have time to tell. As the lab tech works on Spelling’s letter, can someone edit an audio tape for me?”

“What do you mean, edit?”

“Shorten it. I’ve got a confession from Jonathan Russo on tape.”

“Did you have to bust up part of his club to get it?”

“Don’t believe everything you read in the news. Russo admits to killing Alexandria. I want to get the tape to the D.A. Stanley Rosen. If he hears it, he could ask a judge to issue a stay until an appellate court can consider it.”

“Rosen will only go to bat if he’s sure you can deliver a point in his win column. Makes no sense for him to pinch hit for a public defender.”

“But to execute an innocent man, especially if that man’s innocence might be proven after the state executes him, doesn’t look good for Rosen. He comes out smelling like a hero and preserves the judicial use of the death penalty at the same time. It puts two wins in his column.”

“Eric, the lab tech, is also good with electronics. It’s fairly easy to edit the audio down and run a duplicate for you.”

“While he’s at it, make a couple of dubs.”

“Where are you?”

“About twenty minutes from the FBI office.”

“I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

O’Brien said nothing.

“Sean, let’s meet in the parking lot, okay? About twenty minutes?”

“I really appreciate what you’re doing. But right now I have to keep a fairly low profile. Let’s meet at South Pointe Park off Washington.”

“Shall I bring a snack for a little picnic?”

“I just had a breakfast that I’ll taste all day.”

“Sean, be careful.”

O’Brien looked at his watch.

Forty-five hours remaining.

He pulled OFF A1A and began driving the secondary roads, O’Brien scanned the intersections as he approached them. His eyes took in the periphery, looking for police cruisers and unmarked cars. It was a surreal feeling for O’Brien to be watching for police. He drove just below the posted speed limits, checking his mirrors, ready to turn into a side road, an alley, or a fast food drive-through if he had to.

His cell rang. O’Brien recognized Detective Dan Grant’s number. “Sean, we found Lyle Johnson’s truck.”

“Where’s Johnson?”

“Don’t know. FHP clocked two teenage boys doing a hundred in a forty-five off State Road 27. Said they found the truck with the keys in the ignition. Decided to take it for a joyride. Got a couple of glum faces when they were booked on grand theft auto.”

“Where’d they find it?”

“A place called Pioneer Village. Said they found the truck pulled off a dirt road parked under a tree. The village is one of those living history things. It’s a remote spot on the west side of Volusia County not too far from the river. County has a few old turn-of-the-century buildings, houses, barns, and whatnot set up there. Schools take kids out to the place for field trips. We have deputies combing the area.”

“Thanks, Dan. Go back to the hospital security room. See if they have video of Lyle Johnson in the hospital using a cell phone during the time Sam Spelling was in recovery. Pull his phone records. See if he made a call to Miami Beach.”

“Where’re you?”

“Miami Beach. Meeting with the FBI. We might have enough to get a stay for Charlie Williams.”

“Make any more sense out of that scrawling the priest left in blood?”

“Not yet.”

Dan sighed. “Hope we can come up with an answer to the riddle soon. TruTv wants to do a whole damn expose, calling it the ‘satanic ritual murder.’ The woman on CNN, the prosecutor-turned-TV-moderator…I forget her name-anyway, she interviewed the chief on live TV and asked him if the priest was believed to have been killed by a cult, some sort of sacrifice. How’s this shit get started, huh?”

“I wish I knew.”

“People are driving by the church at all hours. They’ve had to hire security. Father Callahan’s funeral is planned for Monday. When are you back in town?”

“Look at what we’re facing: Sam Spelling killed in his bed, Father Callahan killed in his church, and now you might find Lyle Johnson’s body. A possible third homicide in less than six hours.”

“We got us a killer doing some serious overtime.”

“Russo has admitted to killing Alexandria Cole, but after questioning him this time, I don’t believe he’s that good-three hits in six hours. It’s the mark of an extreme pro.”

“You saying Russo brought in a hired gun?”

“Yeah, and I might I know who it is.”

Deputy Sheriff Ray Boyd recognized the flies. He remembered them coming out of the woodwork when his grandfather killed hogs on the farm in Valdosta, Georgia. Grandpa called them blowflies and sucker flies. The blowflies had large red eyes and green bodies. The sucker flies had red eyes, yellow-gray striped bodies. Both drank blood. The horse flies drank blood, too. But they got it from biting live animals. These flies drank the blood from dead animals.

Deputy Boyd left his patrol car at the entrance to Pioneer Village, walked along the perimeter, following the split-rail wooden fence as it loped around the edge of the property. He’d first spotted one of the flies sitting on the fence rail.

Then there were more.

Something was dead. Maybe a petting goat or one of the chickens he saw pecking in the small barnyard.

In his eight months with the sheriff’s department, he’d never come in contact with a dead body. He stepped from the path and cut across toward the back of an old general store. He walked by the Burma Shave sign painted on the whitewashed cypress side. It wasn’t yet noon, and the hot Florida sun licked the back of his neck like a flame.

A black crow called out and flew from a tall pine to the top rung on a tower supporting the windmill blade. The wind picked up and turned the blade a few times, the clatter sound not spooking the crow.

Deputy Boyd could smell an odor. It wasn’t like any from the hog carcasses. He walked around the front of the store, toward the porch. He reached for his gun and his mouth at the same time. Don’t vomit, he told himself.

The body was sitting in a rocking chair. Head slumped on a shoulder, like the neck was broken. Eyes and mouth open. Flies were darting in and out of the mouth, biting into the bluish, swollen tongue. More flies worked at a gaping wound in the head.

The crow’s call sounded like a mocking laugh as it flew from the windmill.

Deputy Boyd spun around, his gun pointing at darting butterflies and late morning shadows between the barn and the old church. He turned back to face the body. His hands shook reaching for the radio on his belt. Under the rocking chair, fluids pooled like dark oil. Boyd stepped back. He stepped away from the porch. Stepped away from the smell of death.