Page 17 of Girl, Fractured

The plane shuddered through another patch of turbulence, then the captain’s voice crackled over the intercom about their imminent descent into Tampa.

‘When we land, we go straight to Frank’s place,’ Ripley continued.‘I want to see what the killer saw.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ella squinted against the assault of sunshine as they rolled into Palm Harbor.The rental car’s A/C fought a losing battle against the heat that seeped through glass and metal like radiation from a nuclear blast.Even in December, Florida refused to acknowledge winter’s existence.Ripley was doing the driving, and Frank Sullivan’s house was ten miles away according to the GPS.

‘Warmest state in winter, so there’s always that,’ Ella said.

‘What a silver lining.’

Ella had never bothered with Florida before.It had always existed as a punchline in her mind; that dangling appendage of America where people went to escape their past or prepare for death.A place where news headlines started with the words ‘Florida Man’ and inevitably ended with alligators, nudity, or meth.She’d never even made the pilgrimage to Disney World as a kid.

The landscape morphed as they drove deeper into Palm Harbor.Highways gave way to boulevards lined with royal palms.Strip malls with their discount sunglasses shops and endless seafood restaurants slid past the windows.To Ella’s left, the Gulf of Mexico flashed between buildings.The views had changed from Orlando’s tourist traps to something more authentically Floridian.

‘Have you been here before?’asked Ella.

‘Palm Harbor?No.But I’ve been to Florida more times than I remember.Watch out for snakes.’

‘Snakes?I thought it was alligators.’

‘You know when you might run into a gator.Swamps, marshes, anywhere wet.But the snakes?They’ll get ya.’

‘You seeing this?’Ella nodded toward a billboard advertising burial plots with waterfront views.‘Even death gets the resort treatment here.’

‘Frank used to say Florida was where America stored its spare people.’

‘Frank was ahead of his time, huh.’

They passed through a series of small beach towns, each one bleeding into the next without clear boundaries.Then they came to a tunnel of palm trees.On the other side, the vegetation grew denser.The topography of the land changed suddenly.Ella rolled her window down an inch and let in a blast of air that smelled of saltwater.They passed a retirement community where golf carts outnumbered cars three to one.Every lawn featured at least one plastic flamingo, as though HOA regulations demanded them.The closer they got to Frank Sullivan’s house, the more manicured everything became.The houses got smaller and older but somehow more authentic.

The GPS announced their turn and Ripley swung the rental onto a narrow street lined with modest homes.Each had its own dock extending into a canal that fed directly into the Gulf.Most houses displayed seasonal decorations.A few had Christmas lights already strung along their eaves.

‘There it is,’ Ripley said.

Even without the crime scene tape stretched across the front door or the Sheriff’s cruiser squatting in the driveway, Ella would have picked it out.It was the only house on the street without Christmas decorations.Unlike its neighbors, with their well-tended yards, Sullivan’s place had the bare-bones functionality of a man who’d seen too much of the world to care about appearances.The single-story ranch needed paint five years ago.The small lawn was neat but devoid of ornaments.No flamingos or gnomes or Christmas lights.Just a plain American flag stabbed into the soil.

Ripley parked up behind the cruiser.They stepped out and the humidity briefly took Ella’s breath.She couldn’t quite reconcile the image of Christmas decorations and this kind of heat side by side.

‘Neighborhood watch is on high alert,’ Ripley said.

Ella glanced around the street.Directly opposite Frank’s house, an elderly woman in a green visor pretended to water plants that were already drowning.Two houses down, a man in golf shorts stood in his driveway with a newspaper in hand, his pretense all but abandoned.

An officer emerged from Sullivan’s front door at their arrival.He hitched up his belt with the universal gesture of law enforcement establishing territory.Young, glossy-skinned, with that particular blend of deference and defensiveness that cops always displayed when the Feds showed up.

‘Agent Dark?’the man asked.

Ella extended her hand.‘That’s me.This is my partner, Agent Ripley.Thanks for meeting us.’

‘Aaron Bauer.I’m the sheriff in charge of this mess.’He looked at Ella with the cautious optimism of someone who’d Googled her on the way over.‘Are you up to speed with the details?’

‘We’ve gone through the police report and the crime scene photos.Can you talk us through it from the start?’

‘Well, we got a call from Mr.Sullivan’s next door neighbor around 9AM this morning.He said Mr.Sullivan’s cat had found its way to his house.The neighbor tried bringing the cat back, but the vic wasn’t answering his door.Called us for a welfare check, and you know the rest.’

Ella made mental notes.‘Have you interviewed the neighbors?’

‘Yes ma’am.A lot of oldies around here with terrible hearing.One neighbor reported hearing a gunshot around midnight, but, well-’

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