by Tom Lowe
I looked across the hallway, Lana Halley was finishing her interview with the reporter and said, “Somehow I don’t think she’ll do that.”
Daniel nodded. “You could be correct. She’s fairly new to the Second District. However, her reputation precedes her. I hear she’s a ballbuster. Sorry, Caroline.”
Caroline smiled. “Daniel we’ve know each other far too long to make apologies for gutter talk. Sometimes it’s the best way to make a point. I just want to help Jesse. As a little kid, I remember how he played with Andy. When I see Jesse, somehow I see the innocence he shared with Andy…and now I see the pain. Finding Andy’s body, I think, is as important for Jesse as it is for me.”
Daniel dipped his head slightly, lips tight. “I’d try to get a court order to excavate if I had something tangible to leverage in front of a judge.”
“Maybe, now that Sean is here, we’ll find something tangible. Let’s get coffee. Daniel, I need to know the procedure for bailing Jesse out of jail. Sean, can you join us?”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked at the incoming call, remembered it was the number of the real estate agent. “I need to take this. I’ll catch up with you.”
THIRTY-SIX
When I looked up and saw Lana Halley walking in my direction, I didn’t want to take the call. I’d make it quick. I answered. “Hey, Sean, it’s Ben Douglas. Hope things are going well. I wanted to catch up with you. One of the security guards at Dozier is saying some crazy stuff about you. We need to talk.”
Lana Halley was less than twenty-five feet away. Unsmiling.
“Are you there, Sean? Look, Mr. Farnsworth’s not returning my calls.”
“I’ll call you.” I disconnected as Lana Halley broke into a wide smile, briefcase in one hand, purse in the other. “Hello, Lana.”
“Sean O’Brien. It’s been awhile. I’m trying to remember if I ever thanked you for testifying in the Pablo Gonzalez murder trial.”
“No thanks needed. You did your job. In the end, that’s what counts.”
“And you did your thing too. In the end, the body count saved the taxpayers a lot of money—the OK Corral in the Ocala National Forest. That alone took the argument of self-defense to a whole new perspective.”
I said nothing.
She smiled, gazed out the door for a moment, and then looked up at me. “What brings you to our little hamlet? Marianna doesn’t seem like the kind of place a former Miami homicide investigator would find very fun.”
I smiled. “Sometimes the most fun is found where you least expect it. Often in quiet places. Occasionally the quiet is indicative of the mystery and secrets some people want buried.”
She studied me for a few seconds, the daylight coming through the large windows lustrous in her deep blue eyes. “You think there are hidden secrets in Marianna?”
“Every town has them. Some more than others.”
“So let me understand this…were you there when Detective Lee or his arresting officer allegedly failed to read rights to Taylor?”
“Yep. No alleged. It happened. ”
“Why are you here, Sean? Why stick your nose into what amounts to a bar fight? I’m here because it’s my job. You…I’m not really sure who you are. Maybe a wayward knight with a rusty Achilles heel and some personal mission to fix it by fixing others.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think, at least not yet. But if you stay, I will know soon enough.”
“If I stay, you will because I’ll let you know.”
She held her eyes on mine, smiled and tilted her head, the light gleaming off one pearl earring. “Not that it’s not nice to see a handsome face like yours, but I’d really like to know what mysteries and secrets you think are in Marianna, Jackson County or the whole Second District. Maybe I could be of help.”
“You can help by cutting Jesse Taylor some slack.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he went to you. He confided in you, telling you about the murder of a boy, Andy Cope, killed when Jesse was in the school for boys. And you’re asking for maximum bail in what you just said was a bar fight?”
“What are you insinuating?”
“How much does the sale of that property have to do with keeping Jesse Taylor quiet?”
Her eyes narrowed. “After prosecuting Gonzales, you should know me better than that.”
“Then why don’t you level with me? Jesse told you about the letter Curtis Garwood sent to me. So you know exactly why I’m here. You didn’t have to ask. The question you could have asked is how you, as a prosecutor, can bring closure to people like Caroline Harper, Jesse Taylor and other families—people who’ve seen and lived with a lifetime of the psychological effects of child abuse. Those scars don’t disappear. What else did Jesse tell you?”
“Any information I receive from a—”
“Victim? Because that’s what he was.”
“Sean, we worked together once. I overlooked your vigilante methods then. But I won’t do it again. If you take the law into your own hands, if you violate someone’s rights, I’ll vigorously prosecute you. Are we clear?” Her eyes bored into mine, nostrils just flaring. Then she turned to walk away when a man approached. He wore a thousand dollar, slate charcoal gray suit, almost my height. His platinum hair was perfectly combed. Lean face tanned.
He nodded at me, smiled at Lana and said, “Good job on the prelims. I’ve had to move Robert to the Jefferson case. I’m trying to avoid a bottleneck. Judge Reynolds seems to be more about a defendants right to a speedy trial than ever before.” He looked back at me and extended his hand. “I’m Jeff Carson. I don’t think we’ve met.”
I shook his hand. “No we haven’t. I’m Sean O’Brien.”
Lana said, “Sean’s a former Miami-Dade homicide detective. He helped bring down Mexican drug lord Pablo Gonzales when he was caught in the states.”
Carson crossed his arms. “I remember that one. Impressive. What brings you to Marianna?”
“A friend wrote to me, suggested I come visit.”
Carson smiled. Perfect teeth. “Who’s your friend? We might have a mutual acquaintance.”
“He’s dead.”
Carson stared at me. “His name was Curtis Garwood.” I didn’t blink and said, “He was a survivor of the Florida School for Boys. Now it’s referred to as the Dozier School. You can change the name but you can’t change the history of abuse.”
He looked directly at me for three seconds, his pupils closing a touch. “Indeed,” he nodded, lifting his right hand near the cleft in his chin. “All that was way before my time. Even my predecessor in this office, Charles Perry, said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove or disprove any allegations of wrongdoing. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations of long ago expired.”
“Not for murder.”
He angled his head, glanced toward the main entrance to the courthouse, and then looked at me. “Is that why you, a former homicide detective, is here…to investigate a murder?”
“Probably murders, plural. Caroline Harper has tried to speak with your office. She believes her brother, Andy Cope, was murdered and buried on that property.”
He smiled. “We always encourage the sheriff’s staff to investigate cold cases. It’s up to them to prioritize and bring their findings to this office.”
“You can call for a grand jury investigation. And you can get a court order to dig around the property to see if there’s evidence of bodies.”
“Mr. O’Brien, you just heard me speak to Lana about a district judge’s mandate for quicker turnaround times from arrest to trial. We don’t have the time nor manpower to begin archeological digs on state property. Perhaps you can ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to poke around. Nice meeting you.” He turned on his Brooks Brothers lace-up shoes, gestured for Lana to follow him and walked down the hall, turning around a corner.
I saw a man standing to the far right of the corridor—the reporter.
He lowered his camera and left the building.
I called Dave Collins, got his voice mail and said, “Dave, give me a call. There are some shadows on the wall here in Marianna. Maybe you can shine a light into some dark places for me.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
It’s the unscheduled stops that sometime lead to a destination. But you often don’t know it until you go back and remember where you were at the milepost of an investigation. I was about to leave the courthouse when I smelled fresh roasted coffee. I walked around an alcove, the scent of brewed coffee leading me.
People moved in small herds up and down the halls in search of courtrooms and, for some, justice. Two baristas worked behind the counter in the coffee shop, grinding beans and pouring coffee. There were at least a dozen small tables and chairs scattered in the nooks of the shop. I ordered a large black coffee to go.
As I waited for the barista to fill the order, I glanced around the shop. People, most dressed in professional attire, sat at a few of the tables engrossed in hushed conversations. At a table tucked in the far reaches of the shop, I spotted the detective sitting with state attorney Jeff Carson. They were drinking coffee from paper cups, talking quietly. Carson doing more talking than listening.
I paid for my coffee and left. The fresh air and sunlight was a welcome change from the courthouse. Two members of the Johnson family lingered near the building, still talking, probably about Jesse Taylor. One man, the guy with the full streaked beard, laughed at something, and then the two men walked away, going separate directions. I came down the courthouse steps and followed the bearded man, keeping my distance.
He kept to the sidewalk, walking under the deep shade of the live oaks. He stepped up to a late model pickup truck. Someone was sitting on the passenger side of the truck, cigarette smoke curling out the open window. The passenger appeared to be an old man. I moved faster. My Jeep was parked less than three spaces from the truck.
The older man wore a Stetson hat, white T-shirt. The bearded man got into the driver’s side. He didn’t start the engine immediately, instead the two men sat there talking. I walked behind the truck, memorizing the license tag number, moving near the passenger side of the truck. I pulled out my phone, pretending to send a text standing beside a locked mid-eighties model Ford Taurus. I tried to get a glimpse of the man wearing the Stetson, but the hat was too far down on his forehead. He held the cigarette in his right hand. Claw-like. Hand knotted from arthritis, nicotine stains between two fingers.
The motor started. I feigned taking a call, turning back toward the passenger side, the sound of a George Jones song coming from inside the truck. A gust of wind blew through the trees, the branches moving, dappled light falling against one side of the truck. The old man knocked the ash off the cigarette, light from the sun illuminating a tattoo on his forearm. Although the ink was faded, and his skin flaccid, I could tell the tattoo was the same image Curtis Garwood had seen as a boy.
There was no mistaking a tattoo of the Southern Cross.
I stood there as they drove away, a blue jay shrieking in the branches of the live oak, the wind dying and the deep shade returning. I walked to my Jeep, thinking about Curtis’s letter, thinking about the scene I’d just witnessed in a court of law. As I unlocked the Jeep, my phone buzzed. Caroline Harper said, “Sean, Jesse called me. He’s officially been booked and fingerprinted, and he’s angry. I told him I was going to make bond as soon as I could. He wants to speak with you.”
“I’m sure you didn’t tell him I asked you to delay making his bond. He could speak with me when he’s out. Did he say why he wants to talk?”
“He said it has to do with that eyewitness he mentioned…the man, who as a boy, witnessed Andy’s murder. Jesse’s afraid, now that he’s in jail, someone will harm the man.”
“And that could only mean that Jesse’s told someone the witness’s name.”
“Maybe Jesse told the police, or the state attorney. After what happened in court, he could have a good reason to be frightened. Somebody doesn’t want the truth out. What can we do?”
“I’ll speak with Jesse in the county jail. In the meantime you can begin the bonding out procedure.”
“So you don’t want a day delay now, correct?”
“In view of what’s happening, Jesse might be much safer out of the county jail. That can be a place where fatal accidents or restraints happen.”
“I’ll go to my bank for the bond money. Please hurry, Sean.”
I started to open the door to my Jeep when I saw a moving reflection on the side window. It was that of a man, and he was quickly approaching me. I opened the door, knowing my Glock was within reach. I turned to face him. He was the same reporter I’d seen in the courthouse hallway, but not the reporter I’d spotted in the courtroom. Big guy. Scruffy. Loose tie. Short sleeve pale yellow shirt outside his pants, the wind lifting his comb-over hair.
He said, “Excuse me. Are you Sean O’Brien?”
“Who wants to know?”
His smile dissolved, his chest rising and falling. Nervous. His breath smelling like burnt beef brisket and onion rings. “I’m Wallace Holland with the Jackson County Patriot. Can we talk?”
“I’d really enjoy a nice chat here on the shady square, but I‘m in a hurry.”
“Are you representing someone looking to buy the old Dozier School for Boys?”
“If, and this is only if, I were…any information pertinent to a purchase or even an inspection is confidential due to the nature of competitive bidding. Now, I must be going.”
“So you’re saying no comment, correct?”
“No, I did comment and I told you why there is no further comment. In the what, where, how and why part of journalism I gave you the why, probably the most important part of a story, I’d imagine, right?” I smiled.
He didn’t. His eyes widened, suspicion behind his glasses. I noticed a mustard stain the size of a bird dropping on his red tie. “I know that you’re the same Sean O’Brien who fired the shot that took out a terrorist plane on the runway. So why would you be interested in the state property? Is this about building some sort of paramilitary facility there?”
I said nothing.
“Who are your backers? You do realize that all particulars to the sale of taxpayer-owned properties will be open for scrutiny?”
“If the taxpayers had really owned that reform school, maybe there’d have been better scrutiny and less exploitation of kids. By the way, a plane can’t be a terrorist, only the pilot or a passenger. No more than a bullet is a terrorist until a coward aims and fires it into someone’s back. When you spell my name, it’s O’Brien with an e not a. I know accuracy is everything to you guys. Just a suggestion.” I smiled.
His mouth contorted, trying to form a question, his lips looking as if he’d bitten into a lemon. I got in my Jeep, started the engine and drove toward the county jail. In my rearview mirror, the reporter stood vertical like an unmade bed, his fingers punching the keys to his phone.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The feeling was always the same—a type of mental castration. A prison setting does more than confine and segregate humans from the outside. It’s the inside, the human mind, that’s really trapped in a mental sterility by virtue of being locked in a six-by-eight foot cage. Even as a visitor, you can sense the edge of vulnerability. I felt it often working homicide in Miami, dealing with jails, inmates, prisons, and jailers. You, the prisoner—even someone being held on charges and yet to be tried for those charges, became insignificant the moment you put on the orange jumpsuit.
I thought about that as I cleared metal detectors in the Jackson County Jail, signed the visitor’s paperwork, and waited for the jailers to bring Jesse to the visitation room. It was more of a large cubical than a room. Thick glass separating the visitor and the inmate, the ubiquitous black phone attached to the wall adjacent to the glass. I knew how jail begins to torment the human psyche. It doesn’t take long. A rational man or woman may break a law, sin against soc
iety, and while locked in a pen, come to realize through that personal depravity, his or her own self worth. Sometimes.
A lanky guard in his mid-twenties, acne, round shoulders, led Jesse Taylor into the room. The guard moved over to a metal table and chair in a corner of the room.
Jesse picked up the phone. I did the same. He blew out a breath and said, “I guess you and Caroline saw all that shit that went down in court.”
“Yeah, we saw it.” I noticed the scars on the hand that held the phone. I looked at his other hand. Same thing.
“That damn detective is gunning for me.”
“There are a lot of people who don’t want the scabs knocked off the history of the old reform school.”
“That’s for damned sure.”
“And right now you’re a threat, coming from nowhere rattling cages just as the state is trying to make millions in a sale of the property.”
“What those bastards did to us as kids is beyond criminal. It’s like they wanted to experiment to see how much physical and mental abuse we could take before we died inside.” He looked away, eyes blinking rapidly for a moment. Then he cut his head toward me. “You know, in a few years all of us in our sixties and seventies will be dead and gone. And the reform school will be a fancy neighborhood with winding streets where children can play safely. Nobody will know about kids like Andy Cope and the others. We were the throwaways. They didn’t care then, and they don’t care today.”
“I care.”
He looked at me, his eyes searching my face. “Why, man? You got no skin in the game.”
“Because there’s something about a brutal injustice that bothers me. And it really bothers me when it happens to a child.”
“Even though you aren’t family of the victims?”
“We’re all related. That’s the best answer I can give you.”
He grinned and shook his head. “I always wondered why the family of man is so dysfunctional. Although I’ve done some bad things, I’m not a bad person. I’m just sort of despondent because of this nature verses nurture thing. I certainly didn’t have any of the latter. I’m not a philosopher, but I have pondered whether we’re born with a blank slate and life experiences become the writing on our wall. Or is some of that writing on the wall already there—a kind of invisible ink? Does it become more legible the more we find out who we are in life?”