If only Moni had someone to tell her those words.
Chapter 4
When the sun rises out over the Atlantic Ocean and dips its light into the Indian River Lagoon, sometimes it unveils the gruesome events of the night before. This time, a headless body rolled around in the water getting tossed against the sea wall behind a Merritt Island home. That’s where Detective Tom Sneed headed before he could finish his morning coffee and grits.
The fist of dread seized Sneed around his windpipe as he feared the worst. Sneed had gotten a call shortly before midnight from Maggie Kane, the wife of his poker buddy Matt Kane. Her husband hadn’t returned from a late afternoon fishing trip. After the murder investigation the prior morning made his first outing a wash, the son-of-a- gun vowed that he’d have a fresh catch for dinner that night. Sneed wondered whether someone had caught him first.
Sneed pulled alongside the first responder’s patrol car in the driveway. Summoning a deep breath into his barrel chest, he reached for the door. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. When he took command of a crime scene, he usually got an adrenaline rush like Bear Bryant leading the Crimson Tide onto the football field. This time, the black swoon reminded Sneed of that God-forsaken day; the day that he sped to the scene of an officer shooting and found his brother sprawled out on the pavement in a pool of blood. It took three men to stop him from shooting the nose ring off that punk-ass killer before they hauled him in front of a judge.
Brushing past the hysterical old man who owned the lagoon-side home, Sneed barged through the metal gateway and into the backyard. The moment he saw the sopping wet body, he knew. Kane had a tattoo on his left shoulder of his daughter’s name, “Angie” and her birthday. It matched the tats on the decapitated corpse.
“Matt,” Sneed muttered. Even if he was alive, his old buddy didn’t have ears left to hear him. Sneed raked his hand over his eyes and nose and then balled a fist over his mouth. He wished he could crack the jaw of the bastard who decapitated his friend-a father, a beer-guzzling jokester, a man who had tamed the lagoon like a rodeo champion.
Except, it seemed something in the lagoon had bitten Kane back. He had teeth puncture wounds on his right shoulder. Sneed had seen plenty of shark and gator bites, but that wasn’t one of them. Those wounds were left by flat molars that had barely pierced his skin.
“You’ve lived ‘round these parts longer than I have, Harrison,” Sneed told the towering officer who had arrived on the scene first. “What do you figure bit him?”
The lug nut scratched his curly head, as if waking up his brain and telling it to chip in. A former offensive lineman in small-time college ball, Clyde Harrison usually got the job done with his bear-like strength. At least he did as he was told, unlike some officers.
“Something pretty damn big, sir,” Harrison finally responded. That must have taken all his mental capacity. “I think his boat struck something mighty large too. I got a call from the Coast Guard. It turns out they found a capsized boat in the lagoon. The propeller was all bent and bloody.”
Knowing that his detective buddy would wipe his tickets clean, Kane had plowed over critters and kept on going many a day. One time, Sneed had been in the boat with him when Kane ripped open the back of a manatee. That jackal laughed as he sped away. Hell, Sneed had laughed right along with him. They had owned the fucking lagoon.
Running his eyes over the headless body of Kane splayed out on the grass at his feet, Sneed sure knew otherwise now. Kane had struck an animal so big that it flipped his boat over. That didn’t explain how he got bit on the shoulder or how he lost his head to a surgically precise blow.
This couldn’t have been a coincidence, Sneed realized. The four previous victims of the head snatcher appeared random, but this time the killer took out the first man who had arrived on the murder scene. Kane was the first person who found the girl hiding in the mangroves. Did the killer know about her as well?
Sneed’s windpipe seized up as the foul stench of his friend’s innards and bile wafted through the salty air. Pressing his hand against his chest, he coaxed the air out of his lungs.
“The killer is hacking up anyone who could help us on this case,” Sneed told Harrison.
“So you’re saying…”
“The girl.” Sneed nodded. “By now, the killer realizes she got away. Kane here didn’t even see his face. This girl is the only one who has.”
“I’ll guard her, sir. He won’t get by me.”
Sneed gazed down at his friend’s body. Kane had been tough-as-nails. He told Sneed in the briefing following the Gomez murders that he wouldn’t set out on the water again without a shotgun hitching a ride with him. If the killer could bag a skilled shooter like Kane, no one should feel safe.
Sneed wondered what possessed him to place the most precious commodity they had in the hands of an officer with a limp trigger finger and a fruit rollup for a backbone. She couldn’t round up a rowdy middle- schooler.
“The girl is in Moni’s care for now, like it or not,” Sneed said. Finally unable to stomach looking at his friend’s mutilated body, he turned away and mashed his palm into his sweaty forehead. “This is one good man who wouldn’t have died if that girl had opened her mouth. If Moni doesn’t hurry the hell up, I guaran-damn-tee you there’ll be more mornings like these.”
A couple of days ago, Moni couldn’t imagine she’d have an eight-year-old girl sharing her home. After the hearing before the judge that morning made it official-at least temporarily-her unforeseen dream came true.
Even though she still couldn’t make her speak, Moni saw the sparks of life returning to Mariella. She studied the children’s books she bought her on the way home from the courthouse. Mariella copied the pictures and words almost exactly with her colored pencils. The girl didn’t make another mistake in the bathroom, although Moni couldn’t get her to fall asleep in her office. Mariella stayed awake all night and hardly seemed tired.
The girl appeared to be comfortable with Moni’s house, with the glaring exception of Tropic the red-haired cat. While she shot him a distrustful stare, he dashed under the bed at the first sight of the intruder.
Someone isn’t the baby of the house anymore. Sorry, fiery fur ball.
The officers who had swept Mariella’s former apartment gave her some of the girl’s old dolls, but Moni decided the girl should do without those for now. Anything associated with the life shattered a day ago could unleash the debilitating memories inside the girl’s head. Moni didn’t think she could handle them yet. Mariella should adjust to her new surroundings first.
A few minutes after entering the unfamiliar house, Mariella headed for the sliding glass door leading to the back porch. Moni had an elevated deck overlooking a creek that fed into the Indian River Lagoon. Despite her ordeal by the lagoon the day before, Mariella didn’t appear threatened by the creek. She’s getting over this already, Moni thought.
Sitting on her back porch under the mid-morning sun, Moni watched Mariella draw a long gray boat on the water.
“Nice boat,” Moni said. “Does it have a captain?”
Mariella shot Moni an obliging glance. She drew a stick figure. It wasn’t in the boat, though. It was under water. The girl had drawn a picture last night that looked similar, except it had a manatee too.
“It looks even better this time,” Moni said.
Mariella nodded and reached for Moni’s hand, where she held a folded letter. Moni hadn’t let go of it since pulling it off her front door.
“Oh this? It’s nothing, baby,” Moni said. “If you want, I’ll get you some clean paper to draw another pretty picture on. This one is a little dirty.”
Mariella shook her head and made an opening motion with her hands. Ain’t it something that the silent witness insists that the police officer doesn’t keep secrets, Moni thought.
“Alright. Alright,” Moni opened the letter.
Before she even saw Darren’s handwriting, she knew he had left it. In this day of e-mail and text messages, only he would pin thug mail to her door with a stick of gum. It’s not that he didn’t use computers-his wannabe hip
