“We let him take Max that night. We didn’t know where they went or what they did. We didn’t ask. We were just so happy when Moe brought him back the following day.”
She paused.
It gave me a chance to reflect on her comments.
I was pretty sure I knew what Moe and Max had done that night. I suspected they had robbed the Spencer’s store at the new mall in the Channel District of Tampa. It would explain why their fingerprints were found on the safe there.
That night was also probably when Moe had videotaped Max’s hands communicating in sign language. I remembered the message his hands had communicated: Happy anniversary, Mommy.
“Month after month we paid Moe the blackmail money,” Granny said. “Then last week we got a call from Julie. She told us about Kirsten Love and the Facebook video of the boy’s hands communicating in sign language. She said she thought somebody was stalking her.
“My husband and I immediately suspected Moe. We thought her own brother was doing it. We thought we knew why too.
“See, one day Moe had told us the story of how Julie had reported him to the police and how he had to go to jail and how he was raped there. He hated her for that. He was always saying bad things about her, so we knew his motive for making the video was to make her miserable.
“My husband and I don’t much care much for Julie, so it didn’t really matter to us if her brother wanted to torture her. What did matter to us was Julie’s reaction to seeing the video.
“She told us over the phone the video had convinced her that Max was still alive. She said she was going to try to find him. She said Detective Woods had watched the video and was going to begin an investigation.
“That troubled us deeply. The last thing we needed was to have the police out looking for Max again. We realized Moe was jeopardizing everything.
“And so one night my husband drove to the Orlando townhouse where Moe and his girlfriend live. He told Moe to stop harassing Julie. He explained how it was putting everything at risk. Moe agreed to stop.
“We haven’t seen or heard from Moe since then. He didn’t even show up this month to collect the blackmail money. I think my husband really got to him.”
Her husband got to him all right. He got to him by putting a bullet in his skull. And then he kept it a secret. He never told Granny about it. It was a theory I had.
I wanted to tell my theory to the cops. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell them about the double murder in Orlando. They would ask me how I knew about it. I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t tell them Julie and I had broken into Tina’s townhouse and discovered two dead bodies in the closet.
I knew I wouldn’t have to tell my theory to the cops. Because they would figure out the truth on their own. They would learn about Moe’s blackmail scheme from Gramps and Granny. Then they would investigate Moe. They would find his body and Tina’s body. They would also probably find the murder weapon in the grandparents’ house.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Who dug up Heath’s body? Do either of you know?”
“You think it was one of us?” Gramps said. “Is that what you think?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You think it was both of us?”
“I didn’t say that either. I’m just curious who would have dug up Heath’s body and then dragged it over to where somebody could spot it. I thought maybe you knew who did it.”
“No,” Gramps said. “But I’d like to know. I’d like to get my hands on the crazy son of a bitch that did it. What kind of nut disturbs a grave? Crazy son of a bitch.”
“Mr. Lane,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned and saw Detective Woods.
“It’s like I told you before,” he said, walking over to me. “Marshals always get the job done.”
He gave me a thumbs-up.
“They’re all yours, Detective Woods.”
The pair grumbled when he cuffed them.
He read them their rights and they muttered that they understood their rights and then the three of them disappeared around the side of the house.
As I made my way toward the front yard I saw flashing blue lights, men in suits with badges, patrol cars.
My heart fluttered when I spotted Julie and Max clinging together. Her face was red. She had been crying.
I started toward them.
She met me halfway, embraced me warmly, kissed my lips.
“Max and I have a lot of catching up to do. Years and years of catching up. So much has happened. So much has changed. We have so much to share with each other. Look at him, Rip. Look at my handsome son over there. I knew he was alive. I knew it. I felt it in my soul.”
“A mother always knows.”
“Max told me he wants to get a dog and name it Meatball.”
“Good name for a dog.”
“I wonder where he got the name from.”
“Me too.”
“Did Heath’s parents tell you anything?”
“They did. They told me the whole story.”
“No kidding.”
“No kidding. You want to hear it now or when we get home?”
“Tell me when we get home.”
CHAPTER 52
WHEN WE PULLED into Sarasota Oceanfront Campground later that night our eyes widened in surprise. As we drove through the campground a chaotic scene unfolded around us. It resembled the scene we had just left behind in Tampa.
Something bad had happened at the campground while we were gone. A murder maybe. Maybe a rape. Something bad.
I took in the scene: Sirens. Blue lights strobing. Helicopters thrumming overhead. Cops cops cops everywhere. Uniformed cops. Plainclothes cops. All kinds of cops. Spectators everywhere. Patrol cars and ambulances. News vans.
“I hope nothing happened to Mom,” Julie said from her seat behind me on the motorcycle. “What if something happened to her? What if she’s hurt? What if she’s dead?”
I thought about the tragic irony of Julie losing her mother on the same day that she found her son.
“You could phone her,” I said over my shoulder. “See if she’s all right.”
“I tried to reach her before we left Tampa. She didn’t answer.”
“We’re almost home anyway. We’ll see her soon.”
My motorcycle weaved its way slowly through the throng of spectators. It was a big crowd.
Nearly all crowds act collectively. Crowd members think as one, feel as one, act as one. They follow the actions of others without much thought. People in crowds tend to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. They allow their primitive selves to emerge. They remove their masks of civilized behavior and become one with the faceless crowd.
News choppers hovered over the scene. They competed for airspace, jockeyed for camera angles, maneuvered for exclusive shots.
My eyes scanned the crowd as I parked along the side of the road near my RV. I spotted Julie’s mother. She wasn’t hurt and she wasn’t dead. She sat observing the chaos.
“There’s Ruth over there,” I told Julie and Max as the three of us got off my motorcycle. “Looks like nothing happened to her.”
“Max and I are going over to talk to her.”
I nodded and turned and loped away toward an ambulance.
Police radios crackled around me. Bright yellow tape stretched around the crime scene. Big black block letters ran across the tape: CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.
The ambulance was parked haphazardly on the sidewalk. Its engine rumbled and its lights flashed. An EMT stood at the open doors and peered inside.
Behind him a woman sobbed. I recognized her. It was Mrs. Neat.
I glanced inside the ambulance.
Mr. Neat lay on a stretcher, oxygen mask over his face, electrodes attached to his chest. He had gunshot wounds. An EMT sat beside him.
“Try to breath normally,” she told him. “You’re doing great.”
A lie. He looked like death.
His wife climbe
d inside and the ambulance doors slammed shut and the vehicle screamed away into the night with siren blaring.
Who shot him? Was it Mr. Messy? Did he shoot him to stop the bullying?
People can be pushed only so far. Then they push back. Everybody has a limit. Even tyrants know this.
Mr. Neat had pushed too far. He didn’t know when to stop. He didn’t know the Messy family’s limit. He had intimidated them, stalked them, threatened them.
The bullying, the harassment, the tyranny—now it was all over.
But now there would be a new set of problems for the Messy family: attorney fees, court costs, jail time.
I looked around for Mr. Messy but he was nowhere in sight.
Then I spotted his wife. She sat in the back of a patrol car with her hands cuffed behind her. Her clothes were covered with blood. She sat silently staring into space. Fire in her eyes. Like a Halloween pumpkin.
A young guy walked up beside me, nodded toward the patrol car.
“That chick was pissed, man,” he told me. “Really pissed. She just fired and reloaded and fired some more. I saw the whole thing, man. Fired, reloaded, fired some more. Like that. It was like watching that shooting scene from Thelma and Louise.”
“What happened?”
“Well it all began about half an hour ago. I was waxing my surfboard and listening to Metallica. You ever listen to them? Those dudes are brutal. Speed metal, man. Speed metal. Anyway I heard yelling and cursing. It was loud. Like really loud. I could hear it over Metallica, for Christ sake. That’s how loud it was.”
He squinted, pursed his lips.
“So anyway I went to the window to see what the brouhaha was all about. You know what I saw out there? Two dudes arguing. One was that chubby dude always wears Hawaiian shirts? The other was that brawny dude with the military haircut?”
“Yeah, I know the guys you’re talking about.”
He was referring to Mr. Messy and Mr. Neat.
“Those two dudes were going at it, man. Was something to see.”
“Could you hear what they were arguing about?”
“Chinese people in Beijing could hear it. What happened, chubby dude was playing his radio too loud. He was jamming on some Don Ho. Don Ho had ten children. You know that? Ten children. That Ho didn’t have to go to Hawaii to get lei’d. Know what I mean?”
“So what happened?”
“So the brawny dude wanted the chubby dude to turn down the music. He kept shouting it over and over again. ‘Turn down the damn music! Turn down the damn music! Turn down the damn music!’ Like that.”
“Chubby guy turn it down?”
“Naw.”
“Why not?”
“Dude was drunk off his ass.”
“What’d he do?”
“Just sat in his chair and drank beer and grinned.”
“Then what happened?”
“Brawny dude went over and knocked him out of the chair. One punch. Dropped him with only one punch. The chair went flying. The beer bottle shattered. The chubby dude landed like a watermelon dropped from a roof. Was something to see, man.”
“He fight back?”
“Naw. He just stood up and brushed off his pants. His Cheshire grin turned into a shark grin. He seemed pleased with himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He seemed happy about getting hit.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like it was an accomplishment or something.”
“Then what happened?”
“Chubby dude turned and pointed to his three security cameras. Told the brawny dude everything was caught on tape. Told him his ass was going to jail. Then he turned up the radio and began to dance around while singing into a pair of tongs.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it.”
“That was only the beginning, man. Only the beginning. The brawny dude began to hurl rocks at the security cameras. He busted up two of them pretty bad. He was hurling rocks at the third camera when the chubby dude’s wife and son came out of the trailer to see what was going on. They were right in the line of fire. A big rock cracked the boy in the skull and knocked him out cold. Kid hit the concrete hard.”
“Oh no.”
“His mom went into the trailer and came back out with a shotgun. She fired, pumped the shotgun, fired again. The brawny dude screamed when a shotgun blast tore through his hand. She kept firing at him until he crumpled to the pavement. She reloaded as she walked over to him. Then she planted her feet and aimed the shotgun at his chest and squeezed off a round.”
“What happened to her son?”
“They took him away in an ambulance. His dad went with him.”
A cop slid into the driver’s seat of the patrol car and started the engine. In the backseat Mrs. Messy sat staring forward. Her head jerked back when the car lurched forward. The driver accelerated and the engine whined and the flashing blue lights receded down the road.
“There she goes off to jail,” the young guy said. “Meanwhile her son’s off to the hospital and the brawny dude’s off to the morgue. Bad day for both families.”
“They were friends once,” I said.
“Not anymore.”
CHAPTER 53
ONE WEEK LATER I was riding my mountain bike along the Legacy Trail. Not alone. I had company: Julie on a touring bike, Max on a road bike, Dusty on a mountain bike.
The Legacy Trail is eleven miles of paved trail that runs between Sarasota and Venice. The trail is ranked among the top ten bicycle trails in Florida. It is enjoyed by bicyclists, joggers, Rollerbladers, walkers. Much of it is flanked by heavy foliage. Wildlife abounds along the trail: black squirrels, coral snakes, mocking birds. Florida panthers too.
Earlier that morning Julie and I had taken Max to a bicycle shop in Sarasota where he had tried out different bikes to see how comfortable they were. BMX bikes, cruiser bikes, mountain bikes, road bikes.
“Mom, I like this one the best,” Max had said. “It’s a cool bike.”
“Then that’s the one we’ll get,” Julie had said. “But make sure you always wear your helmet. Studies have shown helmets can reduce severe brain injury by up to eighty-eight percent.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Your helmet straps should always be buckled.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“But not too tight.”
We had loaded Max’s brand-new bike into the back of my RV. Then we had set out for Tampa to pick up Dusty and his bike.
Now the four of us were riding our bikes along the Legacy Trail. It was a sunny day and the trail was buzzing with people. We weaved around them. Dusty made good use of his bike horn.
At lunchtime we stopped to eat a picnic lunch. Our picnic table was in the shade. We ate sandwiches while watching people pass by on the trail.
After a while I reached into my backpack and took out the Tampa Bay Times. I turned to the obituaries and found the one for Mr. Neat. Funeral service would be held at eleven on Saturday morning. Burial would be in the church cemetery. The family would receive friends at the family home from six until seven on Friday evening.
The front page of the newspaper had a story about Max: BOY PRESUMED DEAD FOUND ALIVE AFTER FIVE YEARS. There was also a story about Heath’s parents: COUPLE CHARGED WITH KIDNAPPING THEIR GRANDSON. A story about Mrs. Messy: WOMAN BEHIND BARS AFTER NEIGHBOR DISPUTE TURNS DEADLY. A story about the assistant coroner: HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY ASSISTANT CORONER ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT.
There was still an unanswered question in my mind. I believed I knew the answer but I wanted to know for sure. Otherwise I would always wonder.
I stuffed the newspaper back into my backpack and got up from the picnic table and walked over to where Dusty stood feeding the ducks.
“They seem to like pumpernickel bread,” I said. “Especially that big fat one over there. They seem to like you too, Dusty.”
“Most d-duck species are monogamous for only one breeding season. They don’t mate for life.
”
“What about Donald Duck and Daisy Duck? Those two have been monogamous for the better part of a century.”
“They’re not r-r-real ducks. They’re cartoon characters.”
Several ducks waddled rapidly back and forth beside us.
“Got a question for you, Dusty.”
“A tr-trivia question?”
“Not exactly. I want to ask you a question about Heath.”
He pushed up his glasses and stared at the ducks.
“You know what my question is, don’t you?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to ask you the question, Dusty. But only because I’m curious. I don’t want to get you into trouble. I won’t tell the cops what you tell me. In fact I won’t even tell Julie if you don’t want me to. It’ll be just between us. Nobody else.”
For a moment I thought he was going to say something. He didn’t. He just stared at the ducks some more.
Then Julie came over to join us.
“What are you two talking about over here?”
“Cartoon characters,” I said. “We were just wondering if Donald Duck ever cheated on Daisy. You think he did?”
“I heard he had an affair with Minnie Mouse.”
“Donald slept with his best friend’s girlfriend?”
“That’s Hollywood for you.”
“I hope he used protection.”
Dusty spoke up.
“Julie, I want to talk to Rip alone. Will you g-g-give us a minute?”
“Sure, Dusty. Take your time. I’ll be over here with Max.”
When she had gone Dusty turned to me and stared at my shoes.
“Go ahead, Rip. Ask your q-question. I’ll answer it.”
“Somebody dug up Heath’s body,” I said. “He was buried in a shallow grave in Lettuce Lake Park. He was buried there over three years ago. But a couple of weeks ago somebody dug up his body and dragged it over to where it could be spotted by other people. Whoever dug up the body wanted it to be found. I think that person was you, Dusty. I think you dug up Heath’s body. I think you dragged it over to where somebody would see it. Am I right?”
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