Sunshine State

by D P Lyle

  Three months later, farther north, Wanda Brunner crossed paths with Billy Wayne. Late at night in her Santa Rosa Beach trailer. Her husband, a long-haul trucker, had been three states away at the time of her murder. After a thorough dusting, no prints were found in the trailer. DNA was and an analysis proved the Apalachicola and Santa Rosa Beach murders were connected. Florida now had a new anonymous terror on the loose.

  Then Billy Wayne went quiet for a little over a year. Officials began to think maybe he had moved on. Or died. But he reappeared in Pine Key where three more victims breathed their last breath. All in a three-month period. Loretta Swift, owner, along with her husband, Peter, of a bakery/sandwich shop; bank teller Noleen Kovac; and Sara Clark, the wife of a local cop.

  Then, a mere twenty-four hours after the death of Sara Clark, Billy Wayne emerged near Defuniak Springs for victim number six. Misty Abbott, who had worked in a nail salon. Then, four months later, he reached the end of the road. In Lynn Haven, just east of Panama City. His seventh and final victim was Della Gibson, like Billy an FSU college student, home for a long weekend to visit her widowed father, a local prosecutor. The end came because Billy Wayne was stupid and foolhardy. He was popped the day after his final murder, less than a mile from the crime scene, for shoplifting a pair of running shoes. When his prints were uploaded into AFIS, and they matched those taken from Marilee Whitt’s Apalachicola home, Billy Wayne’s career came to a screeching halt.

  His entire reign of terror had lasted less than two years but it had sent a chill throughout northern Florida. All the killings happened in the victims’ homes, where they should be sheltered from such evil. But with someone like Billy Wayne on the prowl, was anyone safe? That’s the fear that led to many sleepless nights in that corner of Florida. Particularly for women who lived alone. Gun and security system sales had skyrocketed.

  With his arrest, the nightmare ended and Floridians could finally breathe again. Until the next Billy Wayne appeared, anyway. And with this being Florida, that was inevitable. Only the when, where, and how many were in doubt.

  The metal bench I sat on wasn’t designed for comfort, and my butt felt like it had gone to sleep. Finally, a young black guard named Marcus McKinney appeared. Tall and fit with a warm smile. The first one I’d seen.

  “You Mr. Longly?” he asked.

  I stood. “Yeah.” We shook hands.

  “Let’s go.” I followed him through a pair of locked doors, opened from the inside by stone-faced guards.

  “They go over the rules with you?” Marcus asked.

  Lopez had. Stay with my escort, don’t talk to anyone unless spoken to, and don’t even think about trying to be cute. He hadn’t really used that word but he had said that bending any of the rules, like attempting to pass something to Billy Wayne, or offering any form of nonverbal communication, or stirring up even a minor disturbance, and I’d get to see the business end of Union Correctional. Pleasant thought.

  “Sure did,” I said.

  “Your first time here?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He let out a soft laugh. “Looks like it. You’re all bug-eyed.”

  “It’s my natural look.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  To say that Union Correctional was disconcerting didn’t cover it. The palpable undercurrent of violence was amplified by the clanking of doors, the shouts of the inmates, and the absolutely humorless demeanor of the guards, who in many ways looked more dangerous than the few inmates I saw. But I managed to stick with McKinney and was soon seated at a glass window, phone on the partition wall to my right.

  I waited, and fidgeted, and waited. Finally, Billy Wayne appeared. He was smaller than I had pictured in my mind. Couldn’t be more than five-eight, maybe 140. Thin and wiry but with a round face that still held its baby fat. He looked about fourteen. Pleasant and harmless. Hard to imagine this was the guy that had terrorized this neck of the woods.

  Billy Wayne sat. He wore a white prison jumpsuit, the short sleeves rolled to his shoulders. No tattoos visible. He eyed me as if taking my measure and then picked up the handset on his side. I grabbed mine.

  “Jake Longly,” he said.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m a big baseball fan. Know all about you.”

  Not what I expected.

  He continued. “I have to admit I was impressed that you’d be the one I’d talk to.”

  “That was years ago. I’m sort of a P.I. now.”

  “That’s what they tell me. Thanks for coming.”

  I shrugged. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m intrigued you asked to see us. This whole story is more than a little odd.”

  “True that.” He smiled.

  “And I’ve got to say, it crossed my mind that you might be doing this as a way to relive your crimes.”

  He huffed a smirk. “Look at you. The amateur shrink.”

  I couldn’t suppress a smile. “Never been mistaken for that. But, still, the idea did pop up.”

  “I get that.”

  He hesitated as if considering what to say. Maybe he was contemplating ending the interview. Dropping the handset and walking away.

  He didn’t and continued. “I relive each and every one on a daily basis.” He waved an arm. “Not much else to do in here. Lot’s of time to think on things.”

  “Good or bad memories?”

  Again, he hesitated. “A little of both.”

  I nodded. I suspected that was true. He probably had mixed feelings on everything he had done. At least I hoped he did. Remorse can go a long way toward saving your soul. And if anyone’s soul needed redeeming, it was Billy Wayne’s.

  “Let’s get to it,” he said. “The guards have a habit of cutting visits short.” He shrugged. “One of the many games they play.”

  “Okay. Tell me why I’m here.”

  “Didn’t McCracken fill you in?”

  “To some extent. But I want to hear it from you.”

  “Good enough. I guess you’ve looked into my career—so to speak.”

  “I have.”

  “What I want is for you to prove what I know to be true.”

  “That you only did five of the murders?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Billy Wayne said.

  “How did a prelaw student, a good one from what I read, get mixed up in this? I mean, you were on a career path of a different sort. What happened?”

  “I’ve asked myself that more than a few times,” he said. “It was almost accidental that I uncovered that little slice of my personality.”

  The murderous slice. The thick glass separating us was suddenly comforting.

  “How’d that come about?” I asked

  “I was twenty-two. Almost. Still in college. Went down to see some friends on St. George’s Island for the weekend. On the way back, I stopped in a bar in Apalachicola. Met this chick. We went back to her place. Things got hot and heavy, as they say, but then she backed down.”

  “Said no?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t into her teasing. It was sort of like being mocked. Put down. And I’d had a few drinks. More than a few, actually. And some weed. That isn’t an excuse, merely a fact. In the end, I more or less held her down. Threatened her. Did what needed to be done. Afterwards she got all crazy. Saying she was going to call the police. That kind of thing.”

  “So, you killed her?”

  “Sure did. I could see law school going up in smoke if she talked. Afterwards, I was scared. Terrified would be more accurate. I blasted out of there and hit the road.”

  “A natural reaction to that sort of panic. When you realized you’d done something that couldn’t be undone?”

  He scratched the side of his nose. “It was sloppy. I never thought about DNA or fingerprints or anything like that. At least not at that moment. Later, after I was forty, fifty miles up the road, and my brain was functioning again, I realized that I s
hould’ve considered those things and cleaned up. By then it was too late. No way I was going back. So, I just cut and ran.” He shook his head. “Funny thing is that, right then, driving up the highway, I knew I’d get caught. Didn’t know when, where, or how, but I knew it’d happen.”

  “But you also left evidence at each of the other scenes.”

  “Not for lack of trying. After I thought about it, I wore gloves and condoms.” He gave a soft laugh. “’Course I never figured condoms would leak when you took them off.” He shrugged. “Live and learn.”

  “So you altered your MO?”

  “Not that it helped all that much.” He rubbed one shoulder. “She, that first one, put up a fight. Scratched me up pretty good. So, next time I brought along a knife. A big scary one. Made for better cooperation.”

  “I imagine so,” I said.

  Billy Wayne’s calm manner was disturbing. He talked as if relating a story that had little to do with him. Like giving someone the thumbnail of a movie he’d seen. I know this isn’t unusual for sociopaths, but sitting here looking it in the eye was, for lack of a better word, unsettling.

  “So, with the first girl, in Apalachicola—Marilee Whitt—you got angry and killed her. What about the others?”

  He looked up at the ceiling for a couple of seconds, then back to me. “After I fled Apalachicola and was driving back up to Tallahassee, something odd happened.”

  He stared at me as if expecting a response. I didn’t have one so he continued.

  “The killing, strangling the life out of her, set something off inside. I don’t know what exactly, but I liked it.” He looked down, gave a slow shake of his head, and then looked back at me. “It doesn’t make much sense, but it was like some dark obsession escaped from a Pandora’s Box inside my head.” He raised an eyebrow and gave a half shrug. “I know that sounds ridiculous. Even does to me. But that’s the best way I can describe what it felt like. Anyway, that was the beginning.”

  “The others were to relive that thrill?”

  He nodded. “Sounds overly simple, doesn’t it? Almost a cliché. But that’s the truth of it.” He let out a long, low sigh. “Don’t know where that came from, where it’d been secreted inside my head, but once that darkness escaped, it sort of took over. I fought it. Knew it was wrong. But a day didn’t go by I didn’t think on it.” Another sigh. “Three months later I was back at it.”

  “Were these better planned? Did you case each place? Maybe stalk each victim?”

  “Not really.” He hesitated as if considering what else to say. “I mean, I came to town, I looked around, found an opportunity, and took it.”

  “No real preplanning?”

  He shook his head. “Wasn’t hard though. Opportunities are everywhere. People don’t lock their doors. Leave windows open. And most of these little towns turn in early. Easy to do what I needed to do and get back home long before anything was discovered.”

  “After the second killing—Wanda Brunner—in Santa Rosa Beach—nothing happened for over a year. That’s when you began in Pine Key. Why the quiet period?”

  Billy Wayne rubbed his nose with the heel of one hand. “I was wrestling with it. That thing inside. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and, like I said before, knew one day I’d get caught. Always works out that way. So, every time the feeling, the need, I guess, reared up, I managed to arm-wrestle it away. But eventually, I gave up fighting it.” He shrugged. “That’s the best way I can explain it.”

  “And the end?” I asked. “The shoplifting?”

  “Stupid, huh?”

  “Some have speculated that you wanted to get caught. That you did that to end it all.”

  I had read that in Pancake’s documents. Some psych type offered that opinion. A few others agreed.

  “Shrinks say all kinds of stuff. Mostly psychobabble. Keeps them in business, I guess.” He nodded back over his shoulder. “Trust me, no one wants to be in here.”

  “I suppose that’s a fact,” I said.

  “The truth is that it was simply a bad choice. Several bad choices. First off, I stayed around the area. Not sure why. At some motel off the highway. Should’ve gone back home. Things are always calmer there. Not like when I’m on the road hunting. Who knows, maybe I would’ve found someone else regardless of where I was. Done another killing. Anyway, I hung around. Even bought a map, trying to decide where to go next.” He shrugged. “It was worming around in my head, that’s for sure. But, instead, I walked in that store. I wanted those shoes and took them.”

  “I’m curious. Why go through all this now? I mean, seven life sentences versus five doesn’t seem like much of a victory.”

  “To me it is.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? Or am I talking to the wrong person?”

  “I suspect we’ll see. Tell me what you believe and what exactly you expect from Longly Investigations.”

  “I confessed to all seven killings. Had to for the bargain. But the truth is two of them weren’t mine. I expect you to figure out which ones and to prove it wasn’t me.”

  “And that’s what we’ll try to do. But, can I ask which ones you deny doing?”

  “Well now, didn’t I just say that was what you’re supposed to figure out?”

  “It would help if we knew where to look.”

  Billy Wayne shrugged but said nothing.

  “McCracken said you wouldn’t tell him either. Said you knew who did it but had steadfastly refused to give up that information.”

  “Not going to now either.”

  “Why?”

  Billy Wayne scratched at the stubble on his chin. “If I did, they’d say your investigation was biased. That rush to judgement crap. When this is all done, I want folks to know the truth. I want them to believe it. In my experience, knowing and believing don’t always go together.”

  “I agree with you there.”

  “Look, I did some bad shit. I’m fucked up. Sick in the head. I know that. But I didn’t do two of those killings.”

  “And you want the person who did them to face justice? Like you did?”

  “Actually, I don’t give a rat what happens to them. I simply want the record straight. So to be fair, I think you should dig it up on your own. Free of any bias. Real or imagined.”

  “So we’ll have to earn our money?”

  “Seems fair to me.”

  Just as McCracken had said, Billy Wayne believed in fair play. Not sure his victims would agree.

  “It would save a lot of shoe leather and time if I had at least a hint.”

  “I got lots of time.”

  “I know you didn’t tell your attorney, McCracken. What about your mysterious fan club? The guy footing the bill for all this?”

  “Nope. Didn’t tell him either.”

  “Who is he?”

  Billy Wayne shrugged, said nothing.

  “We can find out. I mean, all your mail is censored, records are kept.”

  “Won’t do any good. He can’t tell what he don’t know.”

  I leaned forward, elbows on the countertop before me, my face only inches from the glass that separated us. “Look, Billy Wayne, we’d like to help. We like fair play and truth and justice, too. But a little help would be nice.”

  Billy Wayne smiled. “I hear you guys are pretty good. Sniff around. It’ll become apparent, I think.”

  “Why are you so reluctant to help here? The potential bias aside.”

  “Let’s just say, if I make waves, start pointing my finger at people, things could get uncomfortable in here.” He glanced over his shoulder again, and then back to me. “Not like I got any place to hide.”

  “Like someone might do you harm?”

  “Possibly.” He shrugged. “Likely.”

  “How so?”

  “If I was pointing fingers at a member of your family, or at you, wouldn’t you try to make things more than a little unpleasant for me?”

  “I wouldn’t even know how.”

  “Well,
some folks do. I’ll leave it at that.”

  I stared at him. “If I’m hearing you correctly, that also means that no one can know we’re working on your behalf.”

  “That’s part of the deal. Even a hint that I started this, or was in any way involved, could blow back on me.” He gave me a half smile. “Once you dig up the facts, find the evidence, and do so independently, so to speak, I won’t have to say a word. Everyone will know. And they’ll believe. I won’t have to point fingers or make trouble for myself. I’ll only have to nod and say, ‘Yeah, that’s how it was.’”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  Billy Wayne leaned back, folded his arms over his chest. “So, you going to help or not?”

  “Let me talk to Ray. He’s the boss man. We’ll let you know.”

  “You’ll do it,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  “You will. I see curiosity all over your face.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ONCE I LEFT Billy Wayne and made my way back through the final locked door, the gate guard returned all my stuff. I stepped outside, into the sunlight. I honestly felt as if I’d been freed from a dark cave. One inhabited by monsters. The shouting and clanking and danger-thickened air evaporated and I could breathe again.

  I called Nicole.

  “Be there in fifteen minutes,” she said.

  “Where are you?”

  “You were right. No Starbucks in Raiford. I guess a population of a couple of hundred doesn’t fit their business plan. Yet they have them on every street corner in New York and LA. Go figure. I’m in Lake City. Just up the road. No Starbucks here either, but I found a cute little mom and pop coffee shop. On my way.”

  While I waited, I called Ray and brought him up to speed on everything Billy Wayne had to say.

  “He wouldn’t tell you the names?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’ll make our job more difficult.”

  “So, you’re going to take the case?” I asked.