Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7) (25 page)

“It’s not too smart to send your boys after me either. One of them pointed a shotgun at me. What would you have done?”

“You started with my oldest boy, Cooter. You stood in a court of law and said you’d testify that Jesse Taylor, a man with some real issues, wasn’t read his fuckin’ Miranda shit. You come into my town. You fuck with my boys. I read that story in the paper. You’re nosing around trying to find dirt about the old reform school, somethin’ nobody gives two shits about, and you do bodily harm to my family. I thought it was time you met me.”

“There are people who do care what happened inside the reform school, what happened to people like Jesse Taylor when he was a boy. If Jesse has issues, it’s because of that. And I’m betting the old man I saw in your car, is probably your father, and he’s most likely one of the men who abused boys when they were in the reform school. And you were spawned from the same deviant seed.”

He raised his left hand, taking a drag from the cigarette, fingernails long, packed with black dirt. He inhaled smoke deep in his lungs, holding it inside, studying me with snake eyes. He finally exhaled, blowing smoke from his nostrils, lifting his chin, leaning toward me, his black eyes undaunted. “You come looking for my daddy, it’ll be your final hunt on earth.”

I said nothing, staring down at him. His breathing unchanged, a speck of brown tobacco in the corner of his mouth. A breeze came from behind him. I could smell old sweat and stale whisky on his T-shirt. He turned, placing the end of his right index finger on the hood of my Jeep. He used the longer fingernail to make a smiley face in the road dust on the hood. Then he
strolled down the sidewalk to the waiting yellow pickup truck parked near the intersection. I walked back to the park bench, sat down, and slipped on my shoes.

I looked across the street at the coffee shop. Caroline Harper stood behind the window, her arms folded, face worried. Then the clouds slowly parted and the sunlight returned, reflecting off the shop’s window. Caroline’s troubled face disappeared slowly as if it had been sealed inside a glass time capsule.

FORTY-SEVEN

J
esse Taylor hoped Jeremiah Franklin was still there when he arrived. He thought about the noose and what Jeremiah’s niece Sonia had said. Jesse wasn’t sure what he’d say when he finally found Jeremiah.
Couldn’t blame him if he took a swing at me. Maybe knock some damn sense into my head
. Jesse looked at his cell phone and then glanced up in the car’s rearview mirror. He watched a police cruiser a half block behind him. He looked down at his speedometer, easing his foot off the gas.

“Just paranoid,” he mumbled, lifting the phone. “Two missed calls.” He played the first one through speakerphone: “Jesse, this is Cory Wilson with the Patriot. I’ve been thinking about what you shared with me. It’s caused me to do some digging in files, talking with a few people. You mentioned that I should talk with Caroline Harper. I’ll do that. Also, there are some things I need to ask you. So give me a call. You have my card and now my number. Thanks.”

Jesse hit the play button for the next message. “Jesse, it’s Sean. Call me when you get this. Caroline told me about Jeremiah finding the noose hanging from a tree at his mother’s house. If you’re trying to speak with Jeremiah, let’s talk with him together. I already spoke with him. We can protect Jeremiah in a couple of ways. One is to have him tell his story to the FBI.
The second is to get some national news media interest, and that shouldn’t be hard. That might lead to the attorney general of Florida calling for an investigation. Call me. Don’t do this alone.”

Jesse tossed the phone down on the seat beside him, lit a cigarette and slammed his open palm on his steering wheel. “Shit! You get national news coverage when you start diggin’ up the bodies of kids. We’re not there yet.”

He inhaled from the cigarette, blew smoke out the side window and drove toward the home of Jeremiah Franklin’s mother.

I walked Caroline Harper to her car across the street from the coffee shop. It was quiet in the afternoon lull, except for the blackbirds cackling from the canopy of a live oak. I carried the rope noose in the paper bag. The physical appearance of an iconic noose cut from a tree had left Caroline queasy. She was worried about Jesse. Worried about Jeremiah Franklin. She said, “I’m going home to read my Bible, to pray, and to hope that this nightmare will end. As much as I want to find Andy’s grave and bring him home, to bring people to justice, I can’t stand the thought of bloodshed.”

“Maybe it won’t come to that.”

“I’m not sure I can find solace in what I feel you don’t really believe, Sean.”

“I do believe that sometimes things have to be broken apart to be fixed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Overseas, I once met an elderly Japanese man who could repair broken pottery by using a liquid gold or silver powder. He’d painstakingly put the broken pottery back together again,
holding each piece by hand next to the other pieces until each one dried, creating veins of gold or silver. This would give the vase or bowl a different type of beauty and strength. The old man said the new bowl or vase was made better by having been broken.”

She was quiet a second. “Are you suggesting we should wear our scars with pride?”

“Something like that.” I smiled, looking down at her anxious face. “And even if all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put Humpty together again. But at least ol’ Hump ventured to the edge of the wall. You just have to learn balance.”

She smiled and got in her car, hands gripping the wheel, face reflective. I watched her drive away, walking to my Jeep. I looked at the smiley face Solomon Johnson had left on the hood. I went back inside the coffee shop, bought a bottle of water, returned to the Jeep and poured the water into the center of the smiley face. The image dissolved, the dirt running down the side of the Jeep, tracking toward the curb and vanishing through the grate of a sewer drain.

I sat in my Jeep and picked up my phone to call Lana Halley just as the phone buzzed in my hand. The caller ID indicated it came from the same place I called earlier, the sheriff’s office. I answered and the voice said, “This is Deputy Ivan Parker returning a call to this number.”

“Thanks for returning my call. This is Sean O’Brien. I was there the night that Jesse Taylor was arrested in Shorty’s parking lot.”

“You’re the guy who told the detective you’d worked homicide with Miami-Dade.”

“And you’re the deputy who told the detective Miranda wasn’t read. I admire your attention to investigative protocol.”

“Thank you. How can I help you? You told the dispatcher something about evidence. What is that?”

“You ever see a professionally tied hangman’s noose?”

“Can’t say I have, at least not in person. TV and the movies, maybe. Where’d you find this noose?”

“I didn’t. A young black woman, Sonia Acker, and her family found it. And they found it in their front yard—the yard of Sonia’s elderly grandmother. ”

“Why didn’t they call it in?”

“They’re afraid. I have their address and phone numbers. And I have the noose. It’s in a paper grocery sack. Just as the girl delivered it.”

“What’s your location, Mr. O’Brien?”

“I’m parked in front of Ruby’s Coffee Shop. Black Jeep. Are you with a partner? Can you come alone?”

“I can come alone. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you not to touch the evidence inside that bag.”

FORTY-EIGHT

W
hen he looked inside the paper bag his eyes widened. I stood with Deputy Ivan Parker under the shade of a canvas awning in front of the coffee shop. I guessed his age at about thirty. He had short-cropped dark hair, rawboned face, inquisitive and skeptical hazel eyes. The same eyes I’d seen in dozens of law enforcement officers. Their guard always up. Everyone’s a liar. And it’s your job to cut to the chase and figure out who
might
be telling the truth. And just maybe, peel the onion of lies back far enough, there’s an honest person in there. The perpetrators wear camouflage. The real truth is the real victim.

As a former detective, I had Deputy Parker’s attention. Maybe I could gain his respect. I provided him with some of the information that I had. He closed the paper bag and asked, “Did Sonia say who she thinks might have done this?”

“According to Caroline Harper, she didn’t. Sonia’s a scared kid. Who knows where her Uncle Jeremiah is right now.”

“This hate tactic won’t fly in Jackson County. I grew up here. My son and daughter are growing up here. This sort of thing ought to be long buried in the past. I’ll ride out there and
speak with Mrs. Franklin. I know her. She’s a fine lady. I’ll try to locate her granddaughter, Sonia and Jeremiah, too, if I can find him. Maybe we can piece this thing together.”

“How long have you been with the sheriff’s department?”

“I’m coming up on my ninth year. I’m applying for detective. I graduated from Florida State with a degree in criminology.”

“Put that degree and your experience to good use looking at a cold case.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Dozier School for boys…there are people who are convinced murdered kids are buried in hidden graves there.”

“I’ve heard those rumors. Somehow, they don’t seem to gain much traction here.”

I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled out the photo of Andy Cope. “This isn’t a rumor. It’s a picture of a boy who was held at the old school. His name is Andy Cope. He went missing fifty years ago.” I told him the story and added, “If you want to make detective, investigate that. Unlock the biggest criminal secret in the county, maybe the entire state. I’ll help you.”

He blew out a deep breath. “I can’t work an investigation with a civilian.”

“Sure you can. Every good cop in the world does it. It’s called working with informants. Can you trust the sheriff?”

“He’s by the book. No BS. Tough but fair.”

“Good. You’ll need him.” I told him about Curtis Garwood and how I got involved when Caroline Harper came to me near where I live on the east coast of Florida. “Jesse Taylor and
Jeremiah Franklin knew each other growing up around here. Both spent a little time in the reform school. Their alleged infractions wouldn’t justify reform school today. But it was very different back then. Talk with both of them. If Jeremiah does tell us who killed Andy, can you get with the sheriff and offer Jeremiah protection? Maybe keep a patrol in front of his mother’s house, if that’s where he’ll be?”

“You really think somebody would take him out?”

“Look again in that bag and tell me what you think.”

His jaw-line popped slightly. He looked past me as a diesel truck lumbered by. Then he leveled his eyes at mine, his guard now lowered, replaced by a spark, a sense of justice inside that first drew him to police work. “I don’t need to look in the bag. I need to find who did it.”

“Off the record, what’s your take on Detective Lee?”

The deputy shook his head, blew out a breath and said, “He’s old school. Been around a long time. I saw him at a restaurant, off duty a couple of months ago. He was wearing a gold Rolex. I heard he vacationed in the Greek Isles last winter. How’s a detective from these parts afford that stuff?”

“He doesn’t, at least not on the income he makes from the county. Be careful, Deputy Parker.” My phone rang. It was Caroline. She said. “I just wanted to thank you, again, for what you’re trying to do.”

“It’s not just me. I have Deputy Ivan Parker with the sheriff’s office here. He’s trying to help, too. I told him about Andy. Maybe you can add more information. I’ll put him on the phone.”

“Okay.”

I handed the phone to Deputy Parker. He introduced himself and listened, occasionally jotting down notes, asking a question, more notes. Efficient. Attention to detail.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll give you my number. Don’t hesitate to call anytime. We’ll see if we can change things.”

After he disconnected, he handed the phone back to me and said, “We’ve got to try to bring closure to that lady.”

“That’s the plan, Deputy Parker.”

He nodded. “If we’re working together, just call me Ivan. That’ll do fine.” He wrote a number on the back of a business card. “This is my mobile phone number. Use it to call me rather than on the office phone.”

“Where are you headed?”

“To Mrs. Franklin’s house. And to visit a cottonwood tree.”

FORTY-NINE

I
watched Deputy Ivan Parker drive away in the squad car, the paper bag on the front seat beside him. I hoped by bringing him into the circle that an official investigation would begin. The only problem was that Deputy Parker didn’t feel comfortable letting some of his coworkers know he was looking at a cold case. So unofficially he’d investigate. I wasn’t sure which is more dangerous, tracking evil in the field or eluding it directly on the force.

I unlocked my Jeep, turned the ignition switch, and heard my phone buzz. I wanted a few minutes to call Lana Halley, to convince her to meet and talk with me. I looked at the caller ID. I recognized the number from the local newspaper. I answered and Cory Wilson identified himself. “I appreciate the tip, although it was anonymous. Can I ask who you are?”