by Rick Outzen
I checked my email when I walked back into the office. There was one from Clark Spencer that contained the official statement from the state attorney’s office on the suicide note. It stated they would analyze the handwritten document and release a report as soon as it was available, probably in two days.
My name wasn’t mentioned in the press release.
Roxie yelled at me, “The marketing director for Evans Land just called. They bought eight full-page ads. The first one will run next week.”
I smiled.
Roxie said, “They’re prepaying and will drop off the check before 2:00 p.m.”
Dare had come to my rescue yet again.
I needed to work, but if I sat in the office, all I would do was check comments on the blog and worry about the upcoming press conference. I decided to drive my 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee to The Green Olive. Maybe Tatum would be around.
As I walked out the door, Roxie said, “The marketing director also said Dare would have a package for you to pick up later this afternoon. Do you want me to get it?”
“No, I’ll handle it.”
24
One o’clock in the afternoon drinking in Pensacola was an art. The predictable cast of characters at The Green Olive included a chain-smoking hipster attorney in a charcoal gray flannel suit chatting up a secretary while hiding out from his bosses, a drunken former city councilman lamenting how the voters didn’t appreciate him, two city road workers on a “lunch break,” and a cadre of college kids either coming or going from Pensacola Beach.
More memorabilia than the TGI Friday’s backroom crammed the walls of the dimly lit shit hole. The ancient sound system was either playing Aerosmith or Def Leppard. I couldn’t quite tell. The place seemed dirty, but it was too dark to know for sure.
In the corner sat Monte Tatum. It wasn’t hard to spot his gold chain and hairy chest peeking out of a too-tight, open-collared shirt. He had dropped his professional business attire for the day. He looked a little stressed and strung out. Maybe he hadn’t been sleeping so well. Eva had told me her attorney had scheduled his deposition for the following week.
Tatum was ignoring a young, skinny, blond waitress who was trying to convince him breast enhancement would be good for his business.
“If I had new boobs, they’d make my job so much easier,” she said leaning into Tatum. “Like, I won’t have to talk as much, because they’d do all the talking. The bigger, the better!”
Tatum eyed her chest and licked his lips, but he didn’t say anything to her as I approached his table. He didn’t know what I had heard.
“Well, if it isn’t Walker Holmes,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand while dismissing the waitress with his other hand. “What brings you to The Green Olive?”
“I’m working on my Yelp review of your fine establishment,” I said as the bartender brought me a Bud Light with a lime.
Tatum grunted, maybe it was his version of a chuckle. His skin glistened with sweat, and his pupils were dilated.
“Over the past year I’ve begged you to come to my bar so we could get to know each other better, and finally you show up at one in the afternoon,” he said. “Who are you hiding from? The guys who whipped your ass at Hops?”
“Screw you,” I said, as I sat down across from him. “You’re the one dressing down today. Your Brooks Brothers suit at the cleaners?”
“I’ve been a little under the weather,” Tatum replied. “I stopped here to check on things before I go back to bed.” He looked over at his bartender. “They’ll steal you blind if you don’t check on them every day.”
“Maybe you should talk with your HR department about the screening process for new employees,” I suggested.
He grunted another chuckle. Sitting up a little straighter, he pulled his shirt collar together and fastened a button to cover up the black fur on his chest.
“Holmes, I’m running for the county commission again in two years,” he said. “I want your support.”
I shook my head. “Too early for endorsements.”
“I’ll start placing ads for the bar in your newspaper. We’ll prepay at the first of each month.”
“The answer is still no. We will wait until we know who is in the race.”
Tatum said, “I hear you need the cash. Let me help.”
“In the last race, you had a chain of dry cleaners and ran as a successful small business owner,” I replied. “How do you think this place will improve your chances next time?”
“This’s an iconic place. Getting a first drink at the Olive is a rite of passage for most of this town.”
Tatum took a sip of his vodka and soda and leaned towards me. “Besides,” he added, “you blasted me for owning those cleaners.”
I shrugged. He had a point. We had reported on his EPA violations. His operations used perchloroethylene, commonly called “perc,” to clean clothes. Perc was a suspected carcinogen that could also cause short-term health effects such as respiratory distress and sore throats. Dry cleaners were required to inspect equipment regularly to look for and repair leaks and keep records of the inspections and the amount of perc purchased each year. Tatum did not.
I said, “And you filed a bullshit defamation lawsuit against the Insider after the election that cost me ten grand in legal fees to defend.”
Tatum had found a Tallahassee firm to demand a retraction of our reporting on the dry cleaners. I refused, and the firm filed a defamation lawsuit. Gravy passed me off to a constitutional law attorney who skewered Tatum’s allegations. The judge granted us summary judgment, but not attorney fees. I was still paying off the legal bills in five hundred dollar monthly increments.
Tatum sat back up and bowed his back. “You cost me that fucking election.”
“Not my problem,” I said. “Your shady business practices hurt you, not our reporting.”
“Screw you, Holmes. Remember I tried to be nice and make peace,” he said as he got up from the table, gathering his cell phone, wallet, and BMW keys. “I’d have someone kick your ass, but somebody already beat me to it.”
He yelled to the bartender, “Whatever this asshole orders is on my tab.” Then he left.
The waitress who wanted the breast augmentation brought me another Bud Light. She said, “Wow, you set the Olympic record for getting under his skin.”
“It’s my superpower.”
She smiled. “You’re Walker Holmes.”
“Guilty,” I said as I squeezed the lime into the bottle and took a big swallow.
“You spoke to my communications class at UWF last year.”
“How did I do?”
She said, “It was the most interesting class we had all year. You didn’t hold back. It got me reading your blog.”
She sat down at the table. No one seemed to notice. The bartender was on his cell phone. Everyone else couldn’t see past their half-full glasses.
“Have you graduated?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Ran out of money, but I will finish.”
Sure she would, I thought, but there was no harm in pretending otherwise. I noticed the cameras in the bar weren’t pointed at Tatum’s table. This girl wasn’t as stupid as she wanted others to believe. Her boss wouldn’t catch her on video talking to me. Maybe she actually would go back to college.
I asked, “What’s going on here? Who hangs out at The Green Olive?”
“Drunks and guys hiding out from their wives and bosses fill this shift,” she said as she surveyed the room. “Attorneys, reporters, aging players, and more hipsters come in later.”
Pointing to a television behind the bar, she added, “Like that guy.”
I turned to see Sheriff Frost being interviewed by a reporter. “The sheriff?”
“No, no,” she said shaking her head. “The tall, good-looking man behind him.”
It was Bo Hines talking to Peck in the background of the shot.
“Bo Hines?” I asked.
“I don’t know his name. For a wh
ile he was coming in here two or three times a week, but he hasn’t been around the past two months.”
“Was he alone?”
She said, “No, he usually had a woman with him. She had a hippie vibe, somewhat attractive, always ordered apple martinis.”
It sounded like Pandora Childs.
The waitress continued. “They would sit over there.” She pointed to a dark corner away from the pool and foosball tables. “He couldn’t keep his hands off her.”
“Did they stay long?”
“Four or five drinks, but usually they left in separate cars by 6:30.”
I asked, “Do you ever work the late-night shift?”
“That’s what Tatum calls ‘looking for ass time,’” she said with a smirk. “Girls, boys, drunk, high, it doesn’t matter. Most everybody wants to score. The tips are good, but I just try to get out in one piece.”
“Drugs?”
She said, “Listen, I’m not looking for trouble. What they do is their business.”
So, the answer was yes.
“What about the cops?”
“The precinct is only a few blocks away. They are the biggest partiers, and the boss says they don’t pay for anything.”
The bartender yelled her name. As she got up, I handed her my business card and a twenty.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Sally,” she said with a smile. “Sally Mitten.”
“Call if you ever have a news tip, Sally Mitten,” I said.
She took the tip and card and tucked them in her soon-to-be-expanded bosom.
I walked out into the hot, bright afternoon sun, jotted down a few notes, and made my way to the courthouse.
The press conference was high theater, even the television stations from Mobile had camera crews on the courthouse steps. A dozen or so Save Our Pensacola followers stood in the shadow of the building as well as several city council members.
Jace Wittman began by saying that he had called the press conference to give an update on the petition drive and to speak out in defense of his deceased sister, who couldn’t defend her reputation against the inflammatory writing of “a yellow, tabloid, so-called journalist who wanted to get more hits on his blog.”
I think he meant me. Wittman didn’t look my way, but I felt everyone else’s eyes on me. I didn’t take my eyes off him.
Bo Hines stood behind Wittman dressed in jeans and a Hines Paving Company gray work shirt with his last name under the company’s logo. He wanted to appear as though he had been driving one of his trucks all day, something he hadn’t done in twenty years. Julie Wittman was MIA.
“We have been inundated with people wanting to sign petitions since this morning’s article in the Pensacola Herald,” Wittman said. “Thanks to my brother-in-law’s donation, we have hired people to man the phones at my real estate office and drum up more signatures for the petition.”
He continued, “A. J. Kettler, Stan Daniels, the Pensacola City Council, and the Insider have tried to manipulate this so-called public-private project from the beginning. They will do anything to steal this land from the people of Pensacola, land that should be preserved for our children and grandchildren.”
Wittman went on to complain, as he had done since the project was first proposed, that the city had never sought requests for proposals from other potential development groups.
“Daniels made sure his client, Kettler, got his ballpark,” Wittman said. “This was not a citizen-driven process. The promoters manipulated it for their personal gain. We will defeat the project, and then the people, not the carpetbaggers, will decide what’s best for Pensacola. Kettler can build his ballpark somewhere else.”
Wittman added that his brother-in-law wouldn’t be speaking today, but he had a statement prepared by Hines’ attorneys to read.
“The Hines family wants to reiterate its support for Save Our Pensacola,” he read. “It will contribute whatever funds it takes to stop the construction of the maritime park with its ballpark.”
Wittman continued, “We were distressed today to learn those supporting the ballpark have attacked the memory of Sue Hines in order to defeat our grassroots petition drive. Our attorneys will seek every legal means possible to punish those who have so heartlessly tried to damage the reputation of a beloved woman of this community. We will continue to cooperate with the authorities, but we will not let the legacy of someone so dear to all of us be tarnished.”
I kept my chin up, arms folded, and looked ahead. Inside I wanted to whip my own ass for posting the suicide note.
A television reporter asked Wittman about the note. “I can tell you that was no suicide note. As I said earlier, Mr. Hines isn’t going to comment, but that note was written weeks ago and had nothing to do with her death. My sister often wrote notes to Bo and me when she was upset with us.”
The reporter asked, “What lies is she talking about?”
Wittman said, “Who knows? Probably referring to a hunting trip we took when she thought we were in Tallahassee.”
Puff! And my “smoking gun” vanished.
The reporters cornered me after the press conference. I hated being part of the news, but there was no dodging the scrutiny.
“The note we published today was written by Sue Hines,” I said. “Our expert confirmed it. And, yes, it clearly is a suicide note. Mrs. Hines was fed up with the lies concerning the missing Arts Council funds and whatever else her husband has covered up.”
I continued, “The public has a right to know the truth, regardless where it leads. Kettler, Daniels, and the city had no warning of my publishing the note. Any such allegation is ridiculous.”
I told the reporters that I stood by what I wrote and threats would not deter my paper from reporting the truth. “I regret any pain this may cause the Hines family, but the news needed to be reported.”
Over the reporters’ shoulders, I saw Bo Hines wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. Surely a photographer caught it. I stayed long enough to make sure I answered all questions. I wanted Wittman, Hines, and the Save Our Pensacola folks to leave first. I stood my ground.
I waved Yoste over and told him to type up his notes and email them to me. I would post them on the blog tonight. He moved away from me as quickly as possible, making sure no one thought he was with me.
My cell phone vibrated.
“Well, how did it go?” Gravy asked. “You did go, didn’t you?”
“It was just short of a public hanging,” I said.
He laughed. “I expect nothing less from the fearless Walker Holmes.”
“I’m walking over to Dare’s office. Let’s meet at Hopjacks for beers in an hour.”
When I got to Jackson Tower, Dare was out, but her secretary handed me two large books bound together with a rubber band. The yellow Post-it note under the band said, “Here are Bo and Jace’s high school yearbooks from Pensacola Catholic High. Check out the prom photos.”
I left Dare a thank-you note and said I would catch up with her later. When I got back to the office, I opened the two yearbooks. I saw that Wittman and Hines had the same senior prom date—Celeste Daniels, Stan’s little sister.
Two weeks after the Pensacola Catholic and Booker T. Washington proms the fifteen-year-old went missing and never returned home.
25
The Pensacola Insider once included the disappearance of Celeste Daniels in a cover story on cold cases involving missing person reports. The article said that according to police reports she was last seen on May 14, 1973, leaving Pensacola Catholic High School. Celeste stood five foot three and weighed a hundred and five pounds. She had worn a yellow tank top and hip hugger slacks with a floral print when she left school that day.
Her big brother Stan was supposed to give her a ride home, but ended up having to stay late for a student council meeting. No one could remember seeing anyone pick her up from school that day or seeing her walking home. Police never found her body.
The police reports gave us littl
e more information than that. In the seventies, Pensacola probably only had one or two missing persons cases a year. The officers weren’t the most literate people in town, mostly high school graduates and guys with GEDs. Stan refused to cooperate with our reporter, saying he didn’t want to dredge up the past. Their parents had been dead for decades. Celeste Daniels’ story was a minor part of the cold cases article.
I texted Daniels, and he agreed to meet me for coffee Wednesday morning in my office before eight. With Hines and Wittman trying to derail the park, maybe he would be more cooperative with me. The old families of Pensacola only want to talk about their accomplishments and avoided discussions of the blemishes in their pasts. Kettler’s need for the petition drive to fail might be the impetus to get Daniels to share what he remembers about his sister’s disappearance and her relationships with Hines and Wittman. If not, then it was another dead end.
After taking Big Boy for his afternoon constitutional, I headed out to find Gravy and beer, and not necessarily in that order. Before I left, I posted Yoste’s notes on the Wittman-Hines press conference to the blog with some additional commentary about the questions the reporters asked me. Feeding the blog was almost as important as feeding the dog.
At Hopjacks, Gravy asked for the details of the press conference.
“It was a disaster,” I said. “They are trying to pass off the note as some earlier tiff between Bo and Sue, and the media is lapping it up.”
While he ordered a Dead Guy ale and my Bud Light, Gravy said, “Remember what Oscar Wilde said, ‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’”
I said, “Spoken like a true trial attorney.”
Over beers, Gravy told me his courier had delivered Sue Hines’ note and the analysis report to Spencer. Gravy had caught a few minutes of the press conference on the six o’clock news. The camera zoomed in on Bo crying in the background. They didn’t show me on camera and merely said the publisher of a local weekly newspaper stood behind his reporting and denied any connection with the park developers.
“The buzz around town isn’t too favorable for you,” Gravy said while eating a slice of what Hopjacks called its “Butcher Block” pizza, which fittingly had more meat than tomato sauce and cheese.