Bleeding Green (3 page)

Chapter 4

L
aurel’s fingertips caressed the cool condensation seeping down the glass of Scotch. Eyes half-closed, she stared at the lines her fingers created as she rotated the glass. Cubes of ice floated on the amber liquid. The closeness of the small Irish pub hadn’t awakened a claustrophobic need for more air, but she knew the reaction was coming. The contrast of the fiery single malt and the ice melting into the liquid reminded her of taking a cool drink of water while working on the prescribed burn earlier that day. Hot and cold. Her throat so parched and dry that swallowing was difficult. Sandpaper.

“Laurel?”

The single word floated through the smoky haze with a happy, beckoning tone that penetrated Laurel’s philosophic reverie. Lifting her head, she squinted at the sensual gyrations as Mary Helen’s shapely bottom grinded into the pelvis of a small, dark, well-built man.

His arms lifted, bent at the elbow, fingers snapping in time to the Irish ballad. The man’s black T-shirt fitted his muscular torso like a second skin. A heavy, dark green jade cross hung on a black leather necklace pulsing as he flexed his steel-toned pectoral majors.

Laurel watched in disbelief as the man’s mouth clamped down on the back of Mary Helen’s neck. An octopus couldn’t have done better. The snapping of his fingers in harmony with the pulsing of his pecs was too much to watch.

Sending a hard stare toward Mary Helen was not effective. Wasted effort.

A shriek accompanied by a sultry giggle came from Mary Helen.

Weary of the smoky pub, Laurel stood. Weaving her way through the inebriated crowd, she navigated to the bar. Paying the tab, she attempted to get her friend’s attention.

After a few long moments, Mary Helen noticed her friend standing at the bar. She frowned, shaking her head in a NO gesture.

Laurel gave a half-smile, a small wave and turned to leave.

“No, Laurel!” The voice rose over the music.

With a hand on the door, Laurel looked over her shoulder.

Mary Helen was dragging her octopus lover behind her. Her hand held his in a tight grip. Her voluptuous breasts swaying as they spilled out of her low-cut, red knit top, she reached the door as Laurel pushed it open. She grabbed Laurel’s arm.

Now she had two victims. Laurel decided to push on.

Panting as if in heat, Mary Helen pleaded and begged. “Laurel, you’re here! Stay and enjoy.”

Heading toward her vehicle, Laurel towed the two people behind her, as she attempted to shake off Mary Helen’s hand. Now her friend had become an octopus. She began to doubt her sanity.

Reaching her silver Toyota Tacoma 4X4 double cab pickup truck she stopped. Looking down at her friend’s hand, she pried it off her left arm like a large piece of lint.

“I’m beyond tired. Music was good. My drink was good and now I’m going home.”

“Let me introduce you to this delicious Irish gorgeousness!” Mary Helen’s voice was slurred and full of excitement. She pulled the smallish, muscular man forward.

“Laurel, Ty Murphy. Ty, this is my very best friend, Laurel Grey.”

As his hand wrapped hers in an iron handshake, Laurel thought she might never have the use of her fingers again. She struggled to keep from wincing, as she endeavored to match his Tyrannosaurus Rex grip. No good. Her hand was going painfully numb.

The look in his dark eyes sent a shiver down her spine. His mouth mimicked a smile, white teeth sparkling in the street light glow. The incisors appeared to have been sharpened.

“Hello, Ty.”

No response. Just the relentless power squeeze.

“You can let go of my hand now.” Darned if she was going to say please to this prehistoric Napoleon!

“Oh, no, lassie. The pleasure is all mine, to be sure.”

His Irish accent seemed way over done. Perhaps she was judging too harshly. Right, dude. Take a walk on the wild side.

Something caught her attention in the cab of her truck. Turning her head she glimpsed a red blinking light on her Nextel work phone. Mitch Herman, assistant park manager, had asked her to fill in for him for the evening as he had a wedding to attend. Neither of them had expected any problems.

Laurel glanced at her friend for help. Mary Helen was too absorbed in the alcoholic glow of all that’s right in the world. Both of her arms were wound around Ty’s loose arm.

“Ty, nice to meet you. Now, release my hand!” A harsher, stern quality was in her voice.

Gallantry emanating from every sweaty pore, he gave a courtly bow as he dropped her hand. “Ah, but I forgot meself. Your hand is so smooth and small. Like Irish butter ‘tis.” He shrugged his head sideways at Mary Helen and continued. “Your lovely friend here was tellin’ me that ye are a park ranger. Is that so?”

With her eyes, Laurel lasered a beam that should have drilled through the core of the tipsy woman.

“Come on, Mary Helen. I’ll take you home. We’ll come back for your car in the morning.”

“Now, now, no need for that luv. I’ll see this little lady home.”

Mary Helen tilted her head back and gave a sappy sweet smile, even as a frown knitted her brow.

Watching this expression, Laurel knew that Mary Helen was beyond logic and too befuddled for any decision making.

Lying through her teeth, Laurel said, “I drive right by her house. She has two children to see off to school in the morning. I’ll get her home.”

Ty seemed to resent this idea. “Being a ranger lady and all, I know you feel the need to care for your friend here but no worries, Lassie. She’s in good hands with me. Trust me, love. I won’t be takin’ advantage of your lady friend here.” He kissed the side of Mary Helen’s head, not being able to quite reach the top.

Gritting her teeth, Laurel, resented his possessive takeover. The phone inside the truck was niggling her to get moving. She needed to see why there was a message at 10
p.m.
on a Tuesday night.

A breeze stirred the steamy night. She turned her head sniffing the air. Trade winds. Southeasterly trade winds blowing around the warm Bermuda High fan warm, humid air over the peninsula of Florida keeping cold fronts at bay. Although fall, nearly every afternoon, central Florida had been having scattered thunderstorms—a collision of air from the Gulf sea breeze and the Atlantic sea breeze meeting in the middle of the state.

An enormous clap of thunder made all three of them jump.

Snugging Mary Helen to his side with his strong left arm, Ty made the observation in soft whisper, “Thunderplump.”

Laurel said, “Excuse me?”

A deep chuckle resonated from his muscular chest. “In Ireland, we refer to that as a thunderplump!”

A streak of lightning sizzled to the ground searing their eyes with a brilliant blast of light.

Ready to hop into her truck and let Mary Helen go to the devil with her newfound infatuation, Laurel froze in position, as she listened to Ty’s next words. The Irish brogue was a tad mesmerizing.

“Disney, Sea World, Cypress Gardens, Universal Studios, Cape Canaveral, the best beaches in the world.” He nodded toward Laurel. “Timucuan Springs, a lovely state park with water so clear and fresh from our Floridan aquifer. Florida’s great underwater reservoir. Incredible!” He turned back from staring at the night sky where the lightning streak had appeared, grinning at Laurel’s open mouth. “A natural resource that is not understood by our thronging tourists are the numerous thunderstorms that occur. But you know what really intrigues me, ranger lady? What really tickles my fancy?”

Laurel snapped her mouth shut and perched on the edge of the seat. Who was this man? Evil or brilliant?

“Lightning! God’s magnificent energy shaped into a spear and thrown ta the ground!” he gave a hop of excitement.

Mary Helen detached herself from his arm. She appeared a bit disenchanted.

“Some big storms generate up to 40,000 lightning strikes. Do you know what this area is called?” he stared at Laurel with a gleeful look.

Feeling quite disconcerted, Laurel shook her head.

“Lightning Alley!” he raised his voice as his excitement rose. “The most lightning strikes are in an area between Tampa and Titusville, Lightning Alley. Right where we are standing!”

“Who are you?” Laurel demanded. Rare were the times that she didn’t intuit a person with immediate accuracy. This guy had her flummoxed.

“Phenomena of the atmosphere. Meteorology. Climatology.” A wicked gleam appeared in his eyes. “Hustler of the Gods. Student of the ancients.”

Laurel pulled both legs into the truck, ready to close the door and see what the call was about. Responsibility was stronger than her curiosity for this leprechaun.

He leaned closer to her, resting a hand on the edge of her truck door.

She looked down at his hand.

He nodded at her. “Just one more thing before you go, lassie. Central Florida has one of the highest density lightning strikes in the world. And has about one million cloud-to-ground lightning strikes each year.”

“If you call me lassie or love one more time, I’m going to slam this door on your crazy Irish hand.”

Ty tilted back his head and roared a belt of belly laughter.

He did take his hand off the truck, Laurel noted.

Slamming her door shut, she looked at Mary Helen, who was now hugging herself with both arms. She looked a bit forlorn. “You going to be okay?”

Mary Helen summoned a huge smile as she tucked a hand back under Ty’s arm.

“I’ll be fine, girlfriend. Call you tomorrow.”

Nodding at Ty, she asked. “Weather? Hobby of yours?”

Another chuckle from the bewildering man.

“You might say that. G’night, Laurel.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of an Irish accent.

Before she started the engine, she picked up the phone and listened to the message.

A campground host was asking her to call as soon as possible. An altercation between campers on site 58 and site 60 had escalated to a fight.

Laurel considered telephoning Lt. Meer, the Florida Park Service (FPS) Law Enforcement Officer on call for the night. Pondering the message left on her cell, she figured she could handle it alone. Carolyn Meer would jump on the request. Laurel ranked her up there with one of the people in this world she regarded with high respect.

By the time she arrived at the campground the campers had resolved their issue over which breed of dog was better, a Great Dane or a Chihuahua. This argument had escalated into a full-scale war, or so she was told by the volunteer campground hosts. The size comparison seemed to have nothing to do with the disagreement.

After parking her truck across from the now serene camping sites, Laurel opened the door and closed it with a quiet click. Walking over to the adjoining campsites, she noted the large quantity of Miller Lite bottles lying on the ground. No wonder they had fought. She doubted that there was a single bottle of this particular beer left in Seminole county.

The phone vibrated on her waist. Squinting at the light of the phone, she saw her sister, Kathy’s, name and number. With a feeling of foreboding, she answered in a very quiet voice in the still of the night.

Their ninety-three-year-old mother was in the hospital and not expected to live long. Could she come right away?

Chapter 5

G
ordon Cemetery. The chill wind lifted the brown, ankle-length down coat of Laurel Gordon Grey as she stared at the tombstone of her mother and father. Lifting her gaze, she stared over the old post and wire fence row across acres of prime farm land. As the small family cemetery rested on top of a hill, a vista of land and sky met in a line on the gray horizon. Modern grain farming with huge equipment raped the Midwestern terrain of almost all natural resources, leaving bare, rich soil. Turning her head slightly to the right, she saw the old Gordon homestead—a white clapboard two-story house with a hipped roof where her father, Charles Knight Gordon, had been born. In the early 1900s, he was fourth in the nine siblings born to Gertrude and Victor Gordon.

Shivering from the cold November breeze that swirled around her ankles and up her thighs, she pulled the coat collar tightly around her neck with both leather-gloved hands. A strand of ebony hair escaped from the hood of the coat, catching on her long black eyelashes. Tears filled her eyes, but that's as far as they got. Her determination made months earlier to not give into the grief of her mother's death was a false strength. She knew that postponing this grieving was taking a toll on her physical and emotional health. Not time yet.

With an abrupt turn, Laurel marched to her trusty vehicle. A vintage dark-green Toyota Landcruiser, rugged and practical, the truck helped ground her to the present. She had stored the vehicle in her brother, Andrew’s, barn. Her plan was to drive the Landcruiser back to Florida, as most all her family business was finished.

Opening the passenger door she reached for a red rose purchased at the local convenience gas station. An old glass Pepsi bottle was the vase. These were both in homage to her father who liked to drive to the gas station … just because. No particular reason,
except to purchase a
Pepsi and sometimes
The Wall Street Journal.
Even that wasn't his reason for going there. It was ... just because. She shook her head in a NO gesture as a smile slid across her face. This upward motion of her cheeks caused the tears to overflow. I will not cry, she thought with her new-found determination, a hard-won attitude that carried over from her mother's funeral where she had spoken at the service—a place where women did not speak in a public format. Where the women wore hats on their heads to The M
eeting. No church name. Just ‘The Meeting.’

Her right hand picked up a potted purple violet that she'd purchased from the small town greenhouse. Violets were her mother's favorite flower.

Laurel shoved the door shut with her right hip. Clutching the offerings in each hand, she willed her legs to carry her back to the headstone. Kneeling, she placed the rose on the granite shelf under her father's name and the potted violet under her mother's name. Red and purple. Vibrant splashes of color in the otherwise bleak landscape. Brown and gray. Death.

Tipping her head back, she saw the evening star twinkling through the gathering dusk—the planet, Venus. Thoughts of wonderment filled her mind as she gazed at this light, which had traveled thousands of light years. In reality, she was looking back in time. How many people realized that when they looked at a star, they were traveling back in time? A wry grimace crossed her face. Returning to the farm, her birthplace, for her mother's imminent death and the funeral was similar to smiling in the middle of a war zone. A quiet war zone, but a place where religious fervor held sway over any worldly practices, even friendship.

As she knelt in front of her parents’ headstone, she bowed her head. The pit of her stomach felt as if she'd swallowed a chunk of lead. If hearts could bleed internally from pain, she was hemorrhaging. Liza Jane, her best friend beginning when she was twelve, still shunned her. Even the death of her mother didn't warrant a loving hug of condolence. Some parody of a smile and scrunching of Liza Jane’s face was all the warmth extended to her. How could religious beliefs come before friendship? Where was love? Forgiveness? These thoughts strained in her head until she placed both gloved hands over her ears, allowing the racking sobs to contort her body, rocking with a slight motion.

The years? Where had they all gone?

Gripping the headstone she pulled herself up. Enough of this.

Her cell phone vibrated against her side. Taking it out of her coat pocket, she squinted through the tears at the name. Boyd Warner, manager at Timucuan Springs State Park in central Florida. Her supervisor.

Laurel cleared her throat, wiped her nose with the back of her gloved hand, quickening her stride to the car as she answered the demands of another world—the work world of being a park ranger.

“Hello, Boyd!”

“Laurel? I hope this isn't a bad time?”

Lying, she produced a sound that she hoped was a laugh. “No, not at all.” Opening the Landcruiser's door with her free hand, she sat on the cold seat. The car was freezing.

“Okay, but you sound as if you have a bad cold. Everything okay up there on the farm?” Concern laced through his deep, booming voice.

She turned the ignition switch and the motor throbbed to life. An inward smile filled her, as she counted on this old vehicle as if it was part of her family. With a graceful, quick gesture she turned on the heat full blast. Cold air came out of the vents.

“Thanks for asking, Boyd. Things will be okay once I get back down to the park! Bit out of my comfort zone here.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Other than live in my body … can't think of a thing.” She produced another hoarse sound.

A gravely growl filled her ear. “Can't say as I've ever had any leanings to be a woman. We could swap positions?” Boyd gave a slight, evil chuckle.

Laurel smiled. “We all know you love your job. What's up?”

“Well, I didn't want to bother you, but Janice insisted.”

She nodded in understanding. Janice LaPlume was the hard-core assistant administrator who barked her way through the day acting menacing and mean. A bluff. All the rangers loved her and the administration staff depended on her to keep all nit-picky financial matters pertaining to Tallahassee up to snuff.

Boyd continued, weariness dogging his tone. “I'm holding a letter addressed to you. Return address, Ernie Buckle. I wouldn't have called, but the more I looked at it, the more bothered I became, especially with Janice harassing the hell out of me to telephone you! There's a red skull and crossbones on the back of the envelope with some preschool printing. Says,
I'm watching you.”

Slumping back in the worn seat, Laurel squeezed her eyes shut as she took a deep breath.

“Laurel, I'm sorry as hell. I know you have enough going on but I went with my gut feeling. Even though Ernie is supposed to be in some back of beyond western location like Nevada, I thought you should know.”

“Open it.”

“Naw, Laurel, I'd rather you do that.”

She'd reached her limit of being screwed with. “Open it, Boyd. I need to know what's inside.” Immediately she regretted her tone. She'd never spoken to her boss that way. “Sorry.”

“If you say so.”

The sound of paper ripping open came through the phone. Silence. The deathlike stillness stretched into the cemetery where she was parked.

If the lump in her stomach was as heavy as lead a few minutes before, now it outweighed a bag of lead.

She pounded the steering wheel with both hands as she felt a meltdown washing over her. “God dammit! Tell me what's inside!” Her voice was sliding up the scale even as remorse tickled her reality for screeching at her supervisor.

In a voice that was much too calm Boyd said, “It’s one sheet of paper with a colored photo of you in uniform copied at the top. There's a circle drawn around you with what looks to be a red marker.” He stopped for a deep breath, then continued, “The red printing below your picture says, ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’ At the bottom he signed it,
Valiant.”

“Coward? Now I'm a coward? Dear God! That's just great. He's quoting Shakespeare. Self-aggrandizing piece of filth!”

“Laurel, I wouldn't be so concerned except for some of the stories I recall. Such as ...”

She interrupted, triggered reactions producing words before thought. “ ... such as when my tires had ninety-pounds of pressure the day I drove from Pensacola to Tallahassee for a meeting. A state vehicle that I’d thoroughly checked out the night before I went to a class. A class where Ranger Ernie oddly opted to drive his own personal vehicle rather than ride on the state's dollar. And where Ernie mysteriously pulled a pressure gauge out of his pocket when we were requested to drive our park's vehicle as an overflow for a field trip to St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge and the scumbag had to ride with me!” She knew she was rambling.

“Laurel ...”

“I know years have passed and that was an entirely different park in the panhandle. Grand Lake State Park.”

Boyd cleared his throat.

“Sorry, again.” Shame colored her tone as if Mary Magdalene kneeling at the feet of Jesus. “Why me?”

Digging deep, Boyd found reserves of patience that were his to draw on as park manager. If he didn't have these reservoirs to draw from, his profession would have ended long ago. Managing 44,000 acres of natural and cultural resources for the State of Florida with a staff of fifteen demanded a lot with very little to compensate.

“As disturbing as this envelope and letter are, I believe there is nothing to worry about at this moment. Ernie can have no idea that you are tending to family matters in Illinois. When are you driving back?”

“Day after tomorrow. My brother and I have a date with the lawyer tomorrow. Most of my mother's estate was very tidy. Just a few loose ends.”

She didn't want to tell her boss that the Brethren in The Meeting were requesting more answers from her. Ugly questions from being placed under discipline ten years previous. He would be hard put to understand. To grasp all the unspoken intricacies of the Brethren's doctrine—what many excommunicated members and other folks outside the fold would refer to as a cult. She wasn't that close to Boyd and didn't have that intimate a relationship with him.

A weighty silence hung between them.

“You travel safe. I'll check on things at this end and see if Ernie has had any contact with any other parks.”

Endeavoring to lighten her tone, she responded, “Thank you. I'll see you in about three days.”

A thought tickled her memory. “Boyd?”

“Yes?”

“The incident that happened down near the springs several months ago involving the two women? Was it ever decided if Ernie had a part in that?”

Warren’s voice was grim. “The two men that the women described haven’t been apprehended yet. I understand the case is still under investigation.”

Laurel exhaled noisily. “Not very satisfactory for me.”

“You’ve got that right. District and Tallahassee are pushing to find answers but so far, nothing.”

Ending the call, Laurel sat glued to her seat. Windows fogged from her breathing, creating an arctic tomb. Hollow as a cave, she concentrated on her position with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Parks and Recreation, Park Services Specialist. Responsibilities. Happiness. How am I to live out the next half of my life with contentment and happiness? I'm forty-eight years old.

She pulled a glove off her frozen right hand. Typing in the password to unlock her Blackberry phone, she scrolled down to the name, Brodie.