[Deborah Jones 01.0] Miami Requiem

by J. B. Turner

  ‘With Mr Craig?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘What happened?’ Did she really want to know this?

  ‘Craig strangled him unconscious with his chains and darn near killed him. Had to be dragged off by eight of my men.’

  She was going to interview this guy? ‘Were there any repercussions from the gang?’

  ‘Not at all. Overnight the other white guys left him alone. Respected him for standing his ground. Never went near him again. The Negroes and Hispanics liked him for what they called “kickin’ the shit out of a racist faggot”.’ Erhert showed his teeth again. ‘Pardon my French. And the guards got the message to leave him alone. Some try and rile him.’ He arched his eyebrows and showed his palms. ‘I admit that, but this is a tough place to work in.’

  Deborah said nothing.

  ‘You’re scared of meeting him face to face, aren’t you?’ He enjoyed making her feel uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m slightly apprehensive.’ Not true. Scared. Afraid of the unknown.

  Erhert looked at her for several moments as if trying to gauge her suitability for the interview. ‘Called him the “Butcher of South Beach”, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Darn near took the senator’s son’s head off, they say.’

  ‘Can I see him?’ Deborah’s tone was more edgy than she’d have liked.

  Erhert stared at her. ‘You’ll need a guard to take you down.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  Deborah’s mind flashed back to the news footage she had scrutinized over the years‌—‌Craig’s defiant face, the staring eyes, the fixed mouth, the tattoos. She felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. She stood up and shook Erhert’s sweaty hand. She tried hard not to recoil.

  She sighed as she left the musty office. A stocky guard, bundles of keys hanging from his belt, escorted her down more corridors. She felt disoriented.

  Closer and closer.

  The sound of their steps echoed down the maze of passageways and sounded like an army on the move. Steel doors slammed, on and on. Feet hurting in her new shoes.

  She was patted down, all the angles, and felt herself tense up automatically. More searches. She was made to shake out her hair, pull out her trouser pockets, remove her belt, and open her mouth.

  When the guards were satisfied, Deborah was taken down into a bleak room. It was the room where visitors saw their loved ones‌—‌death-row prisoners‌—‌face to face.

  At the far end of the room were partitioned booths, separated by Plexiglas. Phone contact. Deborah walked slowly to a middle booth, her legs like jelly.

  3

  Deborah stared through the scratched plastic at an empty booth as she waited for Craig. The smell of cheap perfume and stale sweat lingered‌—‌the odor of despair. It was as if all the dashed hopes and dreams of thousands of women and children who’d filed through the door had seeped into the bricks, Formica, and plastic seats.

  She looked at her watch. He was ten minutes late. Was there a problem? Had he had second thoughts?

  Since she’d started investigating Craig’s case, this interview had been the thing uppermost in her mind. Even while doing the numerous features on Ricky Martin or whatever celebrity breezed through South Beach publicizing a record or a new fitness video, she’d still kept hold of the hope that it would happen. It seemed, with hindsight, as if she was being pulled towards Craig. Maybe her fate was tied up with his. Who knew?

  Deborah shifted in her seat as she waited, wondering what he looked like now She’d studied all the press clips over and over again. Occasionally she leafed through the file, gazing at the photos, including the stark black and white images of Craig as a detective‌—‌dark suit, sharply knotted tie, hair short, clean-shaven, face inscrutable‌—‌surveying a crime scene back in the 1960s in Glasgow, outside a run-down tenement. She’d read that he’d been in charge of dozens of the most high-profile murder investigations in the city. Feared hit man Alec Campbell whose specialty was garroting his victims; serial killer Jack Boyle who preyed on prostitutes in the city’s East End, amassing at least twenty-four victims; and gangland enforcer Rab McGill, responsible, it was said, for the deaths of six of his deadliest rivals in a spate of killings in the late 1960s.

  In addition, Deborah read that Glasgow had spawned deadly gangs like the Tongs, the Cumbie and the Toi who slashed and stabbed their way across the city, leaving a trail of bloodied and battered bodies in their wake.

  So it seemed strange to her that a man like Craig, an upstanding detective whose record was virtually impeccable, should stoop to such a level, knifing O’Neill like the young gang members he used to put away.

  But as Michael West, the DA at Craig’s trial in July 1991, pointed out to devastating effect, it was not the first time that the Scottish detective had crossed the line between legality and street justice.

  According to statements read out in the Miami courthouse, following an internal investigation it transpired that on the night of October 21, 1968, Detective Chief Superintendent William Craig had been deemed responsible for a ‘sickening attack’ on a habitual thief, Paul Bain, in the basement of Govan police station on the city’s south side. It happened after his team had discovered a ninety-year-old widow lying trussed up in her own home, following a break-in at her ground-floor flat in the affluent Kelvinside area in the city’s West End. She’d suffocated after a sock had been shoved in her mouth, presumably to stop her from screaming while her home was ransacked.

  When Craig’s men raided Bain’s run-down room in the Blackhill area of the city, they found jewelry that had been stolen from the old lady’s house. Bain was sentenced to eleven years for manslaughter.

  Craig’s bosses wanted him demoted for the attack on Bain. But an outcry from rank-and-file officers fiercely loyal to Craig despite his aggressive style and unorthodox methods led to an informal rap on the knuckles instead.

  The steel door on the other side of the transparent barrier opened and Deborah snapped out of her thoughts.

  Don’t be afraid. Breathe in, breathe out, like the therapist said.

  Craig was led in by two guards. He was manacled at the waist, ankles and wrists. He was tall and his barrel chest nearly burst out of an orange prison top, but his blue penitentiary pants hung loose as if he’d lost weight. He wore shower slides on his feet. Deborah’s gaze was drawn to his powerful arms like lamb shanks‌—‌that had tattoos on both forearms. He looked at her long and hard, his face expressionless.

  Just keep calm.

  Craig, despite his advancing years, didn’t look eighty-two. It was strange. He looked the same as in the news clips, except whiter, his face leaner.

  Craig was locked into the booth on his side of the partition. He sat down slowly, restricted by the chains, and watched the two guards retreat behind the door. Then he faced her through the plastic.

  Deborah picked up the phone in her booth and smiled. Craig reached out with both of his huge, manacled hands for his phone and raised it.

  Well, here goes, girl. Give it your best shot.

  ‘Afternoon, Mr Craig.’ She gripped the phone tight. ‘Good of you to see me.’

  Silence.

  Deborah cleared her throat. ‘My name’s Deborah Jones. I work for the Miami Herald.’

  Craig smiled. ‘Afternoon, Miss Jones.’ His Scots accent was almost tender, his tone that of a patrician grandfather. As if sensing her apprehension, he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, I don’t bite.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So, to what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘I’m trying to find out more about you.’

  ‘Are you indeed? You took your time.’ He cracked a smile. ‘I’ve been in here more than eleven years.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m relatively new to the paper. I’ve only now been given the go-ahead.’ Did he think she was some sort of death-row groupie?

  Craig’s icy stare fixed on her an
d he sighed. ‘Look, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. I don’t know how I can help you.’ He shrugged his huge shoulders, a movement which rattled his chains. ‘We’re reaching the endgame here. My lawyers have told me to prepare for the worst. Next week they’re moving me on to death watch.’

  Deborah knew that meant round-the-clock surveillance for the final month of his life. She felt sick. ‘I’d like to try and help you, Mr Craig.’

  ‘Bit late in the day, my dear, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s never too late.’ Don’t rush things. She wanted him to settle before they got down to business. ‘Before we go any further, do you mind me asking how your health is?’

  ‘Apart from the heart murmur and insomnia, can’t complain.’

  ‘Are they treating you?’

  ‘They do what they can. They’ve been giving me the same angina drugs since I came in here.’

  ‘That’s not right.’

  ‘They’re going to kill me soon enough. Why waste money on expensive new drugs for an old man on death row?’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘You learn to deal with it.’

  ‘Do you want me to take this up with the warden?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  Deborah stared at the old man opposite and thought of her own father. Expensive drugs treated his stroke and his progress was monitored weekly by his doctor.

  ‘Okay, down to business. I’d like to ask some questions, if I may.’

  ‘Let’s take things slowly. I don’t get too many visitors.’

  Deborah curled some loose hair behind her ear. ‘I’d like to learn a little more about your motivation for killing that boy.’

  Craig arched his eyebrows. ‘What else is there to say? To be frank, I’d rather forget about it, if you don’t mind. I’ve accepted my fate.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t accepted your fate,’ she said with false bravado. ‘The trial of the senator’s son was a farce.’

  Craig said nothing.

  ‘I’ve read a great deal about your case, but what I’m missing is your thoughts on what happened. In particular, what I can’t get my head round is why did an esteemed former detective from Scotland like yourself‌—‌’

  ‘You’ll know perfectly well from the reporting of my trial that my reputation in the police was somewhat less than exemplary, Miss Jones.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll rephrase that. Why did a former Scottish detective‌—‌’

  ‘Slice up that ratbag college brat?’ The words weren’t spoken with venom, just uttered in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it like that, but yes‌—‌what drove you to such lengths?’

  ‘It was covered at my trial. You should know what happened and why.’

  ‘Please, I want to hear it from you.’

  Craig leaned back in his seat and grimaced as he adjusted his grip on the phone. He went quiet for a few moments, and deep lines in his forehead bunched tight. ‘You’re very persistent, Miss Jones.’

  Deborah said nothing.

  ‘You want to know what drove me to such lengths?’

  Deborah nodded.

  Craig smiled through the glass at her. ‘This is not a set-up job, Miss Jones, is it?’

  ‘I’m here to help. I want to know more about you. And why you felt compelled to kill Senator O’Neill’s son.’

  He seemed mollified. ‘Okay, well, it’s important that you are clear how it all started. Everything which followed can be tracked back to that night when my granddaughter didn’t come home.’

  Good. He was finally talking. Deborah sat in silence, scribbling her notes in shorthand.

  ‘I was staying with Jenny at her house in South Beach for a few weeks. One night she didn’t return after going for a few drinks with her friends after work. As the night wore on, I got more and more agitated.’

  ‘You went looking for her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Damn right I did. It wasn’t like her. It was the middle of the night, and I was scouring every street, bar, club, you name it. Then I tried the park. I climbed over a perimeter fence. And it was there, on a basketball court in Flamingo Park, that I discovered my granddaughter.’

  ‘That must have been awful.’

  Craig shook his head. ‘Awful? Words can’t tell you what I felt. My granddaughter, a brilliant lawyer, lay naked and bleeding, unconscious.’

  Deborah scribbled her shorthand, and saw his manacled hands shaking.

  ‘Thankfully, we got her to hospital before she lost any more blood.’

  ‘So, then Joe O’Neill stood trial, but he was acquitted. Was that the final straw? Is that what did it for you?’

  ‘No. It was what came after.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘O’Neill had returned to party in South Beach a few months after he was acquitted of raping my granddaughter, as if nothing had happened. I ran into him and his rich-kid college buddies in a bar one night. And they were laughing at me. I just turned and walked out.’

  ‘That must’ve been difficult.’

  ‘You have no idea. That was just the start of it. Did you know that he started cruising past her house, laughing and shouting and spouting obscenities?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Put yourself in my position. How would you feel if it was your granddaughter?’

  Deborah said nothing.

  ‘She’d been drugged and raped, and the boy who did it‌—‌and, make no mistake, he did do it‌—‌was goading her, night after night. I called the police repeatedly about it, gave them the license-plate number, but they said there was nothing they could do.’

  ‘So you confronted him?’

  Craig leaned forward, his ghostly face nearly pressed against the plastic. ‘One night I followed him from a nightclub. He was heading into the park with some girl. I didn’t know if he was going to do the same to her. The confrontation ended with me losing control.’

  ‘Do you regret what happened?’

  Craig went quiet and gazed at the floor.

  ‘Look, I’m here trying to help you. I want to find out more about your case.’

  ‘What’s done is done.’

  ‘With respect, Mr Craig, I don’t believe it is. O’Neill’s case was a travesty‌—‌DNA going missing, arguments among the jury, and, from what I’ve heard, pressure from local government as well. It stank.’

  ‘Done your homework, haven’t you?’

  ‘Do you want to die?’ Damn, that was insensitive.

  ‘No one wants to die.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you open up and speak about this?’

  Craig paused for a couple of beats. ‘Deborah, I’m an old man. I don’t want to open it all up again.’

  Deborah did not respond.

  ‘Look, I don’t have the energy to fight on.’

  ‘I want to help you.’

  ‘Deborah, look at me.’

  Deborah locked on to his gaze. He was not the tough guy in handcuffs outside the Miami courtroom in 1991, but an old man close to death eleven years later.

  ‘Do you know what a place like this does to a man?’

  Deborah shook her head.

  ‘It destroys him from the inside. It eats away at your soul. You know how many men I’ve seen and heard go mad in here?’

  Craig’s hands shook as he held the phone. Strangely, she wanted to hold his hand, to reassure him.

  ‘There was a young man in the cell opposite me. His name was Billy Lee Drew, a functionally illiterate farm laborer from here in Bradford County.’ The case rang a bell with Deborah. ‘Killed his parents on his eighteenth birthday. A week ago, he took a home-made shank to his wrists.’ Craig’s eyes turned glassy. ‘He had been babbling incessantly for the last few days. That boy, probably no older than you, was poor white trash. That’s what he kept on telling me. “I’m just nothing, Mr Craig.” His parents told him that. The kids at
the school told him that. The guards laughed at him and told him that. The boy believed he was filth. And no one‌—‌not a soul, not me, not anyone could persuade him otherwise. He died alone, drenched in his own blood, crying for his mother.’

  Craig bowed his head low like a lame dog.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  He looked up. ‘You didn’t upset me, my dear, but I don’t have it in me anymore.’ He reminded her of her father, two years after his stroke, unable to function properly. The life seemed to have seeped out of him as well.

  ‘Without trying to belabor the point,’ Deborah said, ‘according to a juror I’ve spoken to, Joe O’Neill’s trial was to put it crudely‌—‌fixed.’ She let the comment sink in for several seconds. Craig didn’t blink.

  ‘I don’t know that for sure. There are other people who could put you in the picture.’

  ‘I’m sorry‌—‌you’ve lost me. What other people are you talking about?’

  ‘Look, Deborah, the trial of Joe O’Neill produced more questions than answers. But I’m not about to start whining. I’ll face the consequences of my action.’

  Despite Craig’s physical presence and fearsome reputation, he seemed vulnerable, wrapped up in chains like a circus animal.

  ‘I want to help you, Mr Craig, but you’ve got to try and help me as well. Is there something you’re holding back?’

  Craig didn’t say a word for nearly a minute. Then he smiled.

  ‘Have you ever considered why I haven’t spoken to anyone until now, Miss Jones?’

  ‘I’ve wondered.’

  ‘It’s to do with being closer to death. I do want to talk. And I feel I can trust you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Craig smiled. ‘But there’s something about you I can’t figure out.’ His gaze lingered on her face and Deborah felt her neck flush. ‘This is about more than my story, isn’t it, Miss Jones?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  He smiled again. ‘I can look into your eyes and see everything there is to know about Miss Deborah Jones.’