Billie shook his head. He watched two roseate spoonbills slowly walk around knotty brown cypress knees protruding from the river at the shoreline, the birds pink feathers a stark contrast to tea-colored water. “Sean, this most likely is the area where she stood alive…see the width and the bluff…but it wouldn’t mean she died here. Why are you interested in her grave?”

“Just trying to put the puzzle pieces together.” O’Brien looked across the wide expanse of river, the forlorn call of a train whistle in the distance. “She may have taken the secret of the river to her grave. You mentioned something your ancestors spoke about on the river. You said it was bizarre, very dark. What was it?”

Billie stood next to O’Brien and pointed to the far shoreline, almost a mile wide. “Over there. Pretty much opposite where we are standing. The elders spoke of a great sailing ship that went under the river. But it didn’t go all the way under. They watched, hidden in the bushes, as the soldiers sank it. The ones in the gray coats. They didn’t blow it up. They bored holes in the hull. ”

“Confederates?”

“Maybe. The ancestors said that night the river ran red with blood. The blue coats and gray coats were fighting all night. Gunboats everywhere. Smaller boats going down. Bombs exploding. Men screaming and swimming for their lives. Many were injured. They tried swimming to shore. In those days the gators were larger and a lot more of them in the river. The elders heard the crunch of bones, screams of men being eaten alive.”

“Causalities of war that never made it into the history books.”

Billie nodded. “Bad as all that was, the thing I remember hearing as a kid, spoken from the lips of a very old medicine man at the time, was what happened to one man captured by the blue coats.”

“What?”

“It might have had something to do with that huge sailboat that was sunk. The soldiers caught this guy and later that night they hung him from the highest mast that was sticking out of the water like a big cross. They say it looked like the soldier was crucified rather than just hung.”

“How so?”

“Because they used a hook, a boat anchor. Tied his hands behind his back and ran the hook through his shoulder. Then let him hang from the tallest mast, swaying in the breeze, and dying. A foot over the river. An easy leap for the gators. It was ugly. The remaining band of Seminoles slipped further into the Ocala Forest to let the whites fight it out. The elders retold that story for generations.”

O’Brien said nothing. He stared across the river.

“Sean, I don’t know if what I told you is the secret of the river you heard mentioned, but I’m sure it’s something, once done, was so wicked it was kept quiet. Never discussed. Especially by the soldiers who did it. You think the woman in the photo was somehow connected to what went on here during the Civil War?”

“Yes. Maybe her husband, brother, or father was one of the soldiers out there on the river the night your ancestors saw it running red with blood.”

“Where do you go from here?”

“I’m trying to decide. I mentioned the antique dealer in DeLand, the guy who had bought the painting made from the photo…he said a husband and wife bought it. Couldn’t remember their names until he saw a picture of the dead husband on the news. Shot. Apparently accidental…and on that movie set. Killed by a stray Minié ball from rifles that were supposed to be unloaded. Now that I know that the mystery painting, which was made from the original photo of the woman in this file folder, was owned by the Civil War re-enactor shot on a movie set…things are becoming more complex. Working crime, I never found irony or coincidence in motive.”

Billie nodded and stepped closer to the large cypress tree. He studied the mud between the ferns at the base of the tree. “You used the word crime. But a moment ago you said the shooting was apparently accidental.”

“That’s quoting initial police reports released on the news.”

Billie squatted and touched the mud and sand with the tips of his fingers. “There’s some boot prints here. Unique prints. Look at the ridges — like some old-style combat boots.”

O’Brien stepped closer and studied the prints. “Custom made. Probably by hand.”

Billie nodded and pointed. “Looks like whoever stood here probably took a stick of gum from his pocket. Here’s the silver wrapper wadded. There’s some change…two pennies and a dime. Maybe this fell out of his pocket as he was getting his lighter. He crushed the stogie with the heel of his boot.” Billie used a small forked twig to lift something from the mud and sand. “And would you look here?” He stood, holding the object from the tip of the twig. “Sean, you mentioned that stuff about coincidence. What are the odds that we’d fine this?”

O’Brien studied the object. “Very slim. Maybe that came from the war going on here 160 years ago. But most likely it came from the guy’s pocket when he dropped it. That’s a Minié ball. Could be fifty caliber. Makes a nasty exit wound. I’m betting the guy killed on the movie set, was killed by a Minié ball.”

“Makes you wonder who was standing near this tree and why.” Billie set the Minié ball back where he found it.

O’Brien looked at the picture in his hand and lifted his eyes to the river. “Maybe the secret is beginning to reveal some of itself. That Civil War re-enactor was killed at least twenty miles from here on a movie set in the Ocala National Forest. So why did this photo lead us to a spot? It’s miles from where the re-enactor died, but yet that Minié ball in the mud seems to make the place where he was killed appear a lot closer. Like you said, Joe, who was standing here…and what was he doing?”

She tried to sound fearless. O’Brien could hear the alarm in Kim’s voice. On his way back to Ponce Marina, he called Kim, and she told him about finding the rose. After she read the note he said, “Those shoeprints in your front yard…did you happen to use your phone to snap a picture before the dew evaporated?”

“No. Sean, I’m not a police investigator. My mind doesn’t work that way. I just want this guy to go away. The stuff he wrote on the card is bizarre.”

“One line is from Shakespeare…‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ I’m thinking about the implication of what he wrote…the rose changing its color and the Confederate blood analogy. What rose changes colors?”

“I don’t care! Maybe I can get a restraining order.”

“Where are the rose and the note?”

“On my kitchen table.”

“Put the rose in a vase with water.”

“Sean, are you crazy?”

“It’s evidence. Keep it alive. Snap a picture of it. Bring the rose and the note to the marina — to Dave’s boat, Gibraltar. I’ll call to let him know we’re coming.”

No one in the cemetery noticed the man. He kept his distance. Just another mourner visiting a grave in a remote section of the cemetery. But there were no graves in the nearby woods. He wore dark glasses and a Scottish tweed hat, his features vague in the distance from the gravesite where Jack Jordan was about to be laid to rest.

Laura Jordan sat in one of the metal folding chairs, her daughter next to her, dozens of friends and family sitting or standing near the open grave. The humid air smelled of flowers and fresh dirt. A green canvas awning, held in place by white metal poles, cast a section of the mourners in shade. Most wore sunglasses. Some wiped away tears trickling from behind the dark lens. A few used hand-fans to circulate the steamy air around their faces.

They listened to a tall, thin minister with a ruddy face and hair to match speak eloquently of Jack Jordan, the difference Jack had made in his community, his love of family, country, history, and God. “For those fortunate enough to have spent time with Jack, you couldn’t but help but feel good in Jack’s presence,” said Reverend Simmons, glancing from the crowd of about one-hundred, looking up to the blue sky for a beat, then lowering his eyes to the flock. He nodded and smiled, almost like he remembered a joke he wanted to tell. “His positive spirit was infectious, giving anybody who knew him a brighter day. Jack would rather be off on his next adventure, searching for lost history. Always curious. Always probing for lost puzzle pieces. As much as he loved history, it was the present and future with his family that he treasured the most. Laura and little Paula were his light in the night.”