The Last Stone

by Mark Bowden

  “I still ain’t signing it because that’s in there,” said Lloyd, pointing to the fifth point. “You can come back and get me for murder or rape? Isn’t that still the same one?”

  Dave examined the paragraph and said, no, the paper promised “not to use your statement” in the event he was ever charged. “What he’s saying is, this covers you,” said Dave. In the adjoining room, Pete was aghast. The agreement was designed to do the exact opposite. Dave was offering a far broader guarantee, and it mattered. What he told Lloyd in the room was as important as what was on the page. For his part, the detective knew he was pushing the limits, but he was ready to believe Lloyd was directly involved, so the guarantees mattered less than being able to get confirmation of Mileski’s role. He wanted Lloyd to feel safe enough to take that step.

  “This is absolute,” Dave said—again, Pete winced. “I think it’s the right thing to do. We’ve come a long way today, not only with you, but with the state’s attorney, because before we came down here they were adamant that they weren’t going to do this.”

  Lloyd sighed heavily once more, and then signed. Sucking up his reservations, Pete entered the room and signed it as well.

  “He is the man,” Dave said, after Pete left. Dave promised to leave Lloyd with a copy when he left.

  “Now, let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “Tell me what’s been bugging you.”

  Lloyd then said that Mileski, whom he did not know by name but recognized in the police photo, was the man he saw at the mall that day, “in a suit, with a briefcase, and he was talking to some girls. And there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Definitely was him. And I told Helen, I said, ‘Remember that guy that brought me over the very first time that I started seeing you?’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Ain’t that him over there?’ And she looked. She said, ‘It looks like him, but he’s got hair.’” Here Lloyd deftly accounted for his earlier description of the man as “bald.” He continued, “And I kept on staring and kept on staring, and then Helen said, ‘Let’s go put some more applications around.’ We put some more applications around. We came back. He was still talking to [them]. Now I can’t say that he really did have a tape recorder or not, because he had something in his hand that was small. I don’t know what it was.”

  “Okay.”

  Lloyd said that he later saw the same man leading the girls from the mall. His memory had completely recovered.

  “I said to Helen, ‘Man, that just, he just doesn’t look right, you know?’ And we saw him in the parking lot area, and he had them two girls with him and he was putting them in the car and he started up the car, and I heard this loud muffling sound, and I didn’t think much about it, and I told Helen, I said, ‘Man, something just ain’t right. I just don’t feel comfortable about that.’ But there was nothing I could do, because I didn’t know what was going on. We left. I felt for five days that something was uncomfortable. I did go back to the mall, and I did make out a statement. The girls that said they saw me staring at them, they might have thought I was staring at them because they were around him at the time, but I wasn’t staring at them. That’s what I actually know about the whole thing. I never saw that guy after that because me and Helen left. We moved away. And that’s the whole thing.”

  “What was his name?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “The first name or nothing?”

  “I don’t really remember his name. I really don’t. I’m not good on a lot of names.”

  At this point, Dave went back to the story Lloyd had told him at the outset of this long conversation, the one about standing on a sidewalk in Takoma Park and seeing two little girls being put into a car.

  “No disrespect, because I understand, was that horseshit?”

  “Yeah,” Lloyd confessed. “Well, no.”

  Then he said the scene of the girls being put into a car was what he had seen in the mall parking lot, adopting the out Dave had handed him.

  “That was for real. I couldn’t really say what color the car was. I knew it was a loud car. It was a little distance away. I did see them get into a car. I can’t remember the name of the car. It was more of a maroon. I remember telling her [Helen], ‘Damn, that car is loud,’ you know? I saw it was a loud car and it was him.”

  Dave said he was concerned that Lloyd had now just adapted his story to correspond to the statement he gave in 1975—a concern which seemed obviously true.

  “Why did you go back to the mall?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because I didn’t feel right, that he was family with them or anything. I just didn’t feel right.”

  “Did you see it on the news?”

  “No.”

  This was hard to believe. The disappearance of the Lyon sisters had been on every radio and TV broadcast and in every newspaper for days.

  Dave asked why he had not told the police in 1975 that he recognized the man with the girls.

  “I was scared,” Lloyd said. “They didn’t ask everything. They didn’t ask if I knew him. I felt more like I was being rushed than anything. And back in them days, still to this day, I don’t trust a lot of men. Because of what my dad did and stuff like that. You know, it’s plain simple English. If I didn’t drink with you or smoke a joint with you, I didn’t trust you.”

  “I can believe it.”

  “You know? And I was scared to death to talk to the Law. I really was. Because I had been in so much trouble and stuff like that before. And all I was really concerned about was, ‘Man, they’re gonna put me in jail. They’re gonna think I did something.’ And that’s why we’re been sitting here for the last five hours, because, man, I’ve been scared. I still am a little scared. Even though that paper’s right there. I’m still a little scared that they’re gonna say, ‘Well, you know, that’s not enough information.’”

  Dave took him back through the story. Was Mileski alone at the mall? He was. Were the girls he was talking to the Lyon girls? Lloyd could not be certain.

  “If I could honestly say this is where they are, this is what happened to them, and even though he’s dead and I would take the blame for it, I would, but I can’t. I didn’t do nothing to them.”

  Dave reassured him. He had been a big help.

  “You may not realize it, but what you did today is absolutely huge,” he said. “This was a big to-do. It took a lot of preparation for us to get to this point to talk to you.”

  “If you had brought that [the immunity agreement] to me three hours ago, we wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

  Dave offered to order out for dinner, and they took another break. Lloyd, his shoulders curled forward because of his cuffed hands, left for the bathroom and then returned to the interview room by himself. He paced for a few minutes, swinging his manacled wrists from side to side, and then he sat, sighing repeatedly. Eventually he put his glasses back on and pulled over the statement he had signed, to read it more carefully. He shook his head.

  “Wait a minute,” he said to himself softly, still reading. Then he said, “Oh, they got me. Oh, they got me.” He read from the form, “This agreement does not grant you immunity …,” then exclaimed with disgust, “Oh!”

  I’M DONE

  Chris Homrock was not as sunny and obliging as Dave. He’s a shorter, darker, thicker man, older by about a decade, with a heavy brow and balding dome. Here at long last was a witness who seemed capable of proving his case against Mileski, a case he had been carefully constructing for years, an ending at last to the long mystery, not to mention a career-defining triumph, and Lloyd was tiptoeing around what really happened. Chris was convinced that Lloyd had been working with Mileski. His evasions and obvious dishonesty were exasperating. The sergeant entered the interview room with purpose, carrying a chair, which he placed close to Lloyd. He sat and fixed the inmate with a solemn stare. With Chris there wou
ld be no “Lloyd”; he addressed all his questions curtly to “Mr. Welch.”

  He started by explaining what he knew about Ray Mileski, that Mileski had a habit of picking up hitchhikers for sex, mostly boys “down on their luck.” These victims were sometimes pulled into a criminal sexual underworld. Before the Internet made porn, even child porn, universal, pedophiles formed furtive social clubs. Members were cautiously recruited by word of mouth. At meetings they swapped or sold rare pictures and films and sometimes even victims, renting hotel rooms for their forbidden parties. Chris noted that Lloyd, a drifter, abused by his father, ever looking to get drunk or high, was low-hanging fruit for a ring like this.

  “It kind of made sense to us that you may have been a victim,” he said. “You weren’t born like this. You were sexually abused too. It’s a cycle. You were just an innocent kid who was abused by his own father, and you ended up doing the same to another girl, a younger girl, so it’s a cycle. We didn’t come charging out here expecting to meet a monster. We look at you as no different than those other dozen teenagers that we interviewed that he abused also. The only difference is, you gave a statement that you were in the mall that day and that you saw him. Okay? We’re not trying to further a case against you. We’re just trying to find out exactly what he did to those girls. Because there’s no doubt in my mind that he did it.”

  Chris said he believed Mileski was not just some man who had dropped Lloyd off at Helen’s house a few times. If he could get Lloyd to admit that he’d been one of the teenage boys Mileski abused and used, he would likely make his case. Chris believed it was true. He was not going to leave without it. “We still think there may be more that you need to tell us about how you met him and what he did to you,” he said. “Is there anything more there?”

  “He didn’t offer me any money,” said Lloyd. “He didn’t try anything with me. As soon as he pulled up to the house, I got out.”

  Chris said the other men he had interviewed, who had known Mileski as teenagers, all initially denied that they had been molested but then ended up admitting it.

  “You see,” Lloyd protested. “That’s the thing. He did not have sex with me. He never came on to me.”

  Chris pressed, and Lloyd grew adamant. This insinuation touched a nerve. He was insulted.

  “I’m telling you he did not abuse me,” he said sternly. He hammered on the table for emphasis. “What do you want me to say? He screwed me? I’d be sitting here lying—”

  “No, I want—”

  “Now you’re pushing me.”

  “No, no, no. I don’t want you to lie,” said Chris. “We’ve never met before, and it’s hard to take your word for it on face value.”

  “Believe me, if he sexually abused me, I would sit here and tell you he sexually abused me,” said Lloyd, his voice becoming high-pitched with annoyance. “I was right up front about the way my father abused me. So I would definitely say you’re crawling up the wrong tree on that.”

  Chris bore in, leaning forward in his chair, undeterred by Lloyd’s denials, urging the scenario. Lloyd just grew more irate.

  “He never did! He never, ever abused me! He never touched me in any way, and that’s all I can say about that.”

  Chris wasn’t buying it. “I’m kind of at a loss right now, because I think we’re almost to a point now where I believe that you have more information about what happened.”

  Lloyd bowed his head and made a dismissive gesture with his cuffed hands.

  “No, no. I know you’re going to disagree with me, but hear me out,” said Chris. He explained how surprised he was that Lloyd could recall so many particulars of a man who simply picked him up and gave him a ride once or twice thirty-eight years earlier.

  “I’m confident that you have more information about this guy,” he said. Then he walked Lloyd through the details of the story one more time. Lloyd stuck to his story. He was now “one hundred percent certain” that the man who had given him rides was the same one whom he saw with the girls at the mall and who had walked out with them. The car was maroon and loud. He insisted that he had not known anything about the girls’ disappearance when he went back to the mall to tell what he had seen.

  “Well, why did you go back to the mall if you didn’t even know the girls were missing from the mall?” asked Chris. “That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

  Wounded now, Lloyd glared at Chris.

  “I’ll say it a little slower.” He explained that he went back to the mall seven days later because “something didn’t look right” about the man leaving with the girls. “So I felt bad about it, because I had just had a child [in fact, Helen wouldn’t give birth to their first until months later], and if somebody [saw] who walked off with my child, I would want them to say something.” He said he first learned that two girls were missing when the cop told him after he came in. This continued to defy belief. What about a man with two little girls, even if one of them was crying, would prompt him to call the police? It sounded like a weak link in a larger lie. Detectives are connoisseurs of untruth.

  Chris leaned in once more and explained to Lloyd, intently and calmly, that he had certain doubts and reservations about his story. He asked about the differences in his three statements, the old one in 1975, the first one he had told here, and the most recent one.

  “Why did you lie about the car?” Chris asked. “You said it was a Camaro they left in.”

  “I said it was a Camaro?”

  “Yes.” In fact, Lloyd had practically painted a picture of it.

  “I guess I was scared,” he said. “I didn’t want them to think that I was involved or anything like that, because I wasn’t.”

  “But the car?” Chris asked. “Why make up something about a different car?”

  “I was scared, I guess. I don’t know. I was young. I was dumb. I was high. I was a druggie.”

  “Mr. Welch, enough’s enough,” said Chris. “Here we go. If you read the fine print of this”—gesturing toward the document Lloyd had signed—“this only applies if you tell us the complete and honest truth right now.” He explained that when they left him, their investigation would continue and might well lead to serious charges. “Listen to what I am saying. You are not telling us the truth about the car. You’re not telling us the truth about your relationship with him [Mileski]. Okay? This is your chance to get out in front of this. This is your chance to tell us, ‘I did not shoot those girls, I did not rape those girls, but I do know what happened.’”

  “I don’t know what happened, so how can I tell you I know what happened if I don’t know what the fuck happened?” He was shouting now. “I am done with this, man! If you’re gonna keep on accusing me of something, take me back to prison, charge me, prove me wrong.”

  “I’m done talking to you because I’m not convinced you are telling me the truth,” said Chris. “I will give you the time of day if you’re telling me the truth. If you wanna sit here and talk to Dave and tell him the truth, that’s fine.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I want to know what happened to those girls in the mall. I want to know what he did to them. I’m not saying you’re involved, and I know you’re scared, but I know you—”

  “I don’t know!”

  “—know, and I know you’re scared, but you need to tell us what he did to those girls.”

  “And I’m telling you for the last time. I do not know”—banging his hand on the table and shouting—“what happened to those girls! I do not know what he did to them girls!”

  “Mr. Welch, I think you better pay attention to what this letter states, because—”

  “I understand what that letter—”

  “Because—”

  “I’m done!” said Lloyd.

  “If we find that you are not being truthful—”

  “I’m done. I’m done.”

  “—then the next time we meet it’s not gonna be a conversation like this.”

  “Okay, well, th
en, arrest me, because I’m done.”

  “You and I are done,” said Chris, angrily. He stood and left the room.

  WHO SAYS “BURNED THEM”?

  The room was silent after Chris’s abrupt departure. Lloyd looked plaintively at Dave.

  “All right, let’s regroup and back up,” the detective said. “Let’s just relax for a minute.”

  “No,” said Lloyd. “He’s trying to get me to say that he [Mileski] abused me. Had sex with me. And what happened to the girls. I don’t know what happened to them girls.”

  “Right, and I don’t want you to make anything up. I think you’ve already done some good in this thing.”

  Lloyd calmed down.

  “I apologize for blowing up on him like that,” he said, “but he was trying to get me to say something that didn’t happen, you know? He was trying to get me to say the man was abusing me because he abused other people. Maybe I’m one of the lucky people who he didn’t abuse. Maybe I looked like his son or something. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t take it personal,” Dave said. “Sometimes that has to be done to push to see if, in fact, you’re telling the truth.”

  Lloyd kept insisting that he was not a violent person, that he had never hurt anyone.

  “Did you ever beat on Helen at all?” asked Dave.

  “Ah, yeah, I have when I was younger,” Lloyd admitted. “Yes, I did and I feel bad about that. When I would get drunk and I wouldn’t get my cigarettes or my dope, I’d smack her, you know? And I ain’t gonna lie about that. I was an angry person when I was young.”

  It was now dark outside. They had been at it all day. Lloyd complained about the chair. They could at least get a cushion for it. Everyone was tired.

  “All right, I think they’re, we’re pretty much done. But what I wanted to ask—your opinion only—what do you think he did to those girls?”