Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7) (41 page)

I heard Dave sigh. A second later he said, “If there are dozens of graves, and that’s an if—then this could become a case of serial killings handed down through the generations of guards who worked there. This could become one of America’s greatest tragedies—one that has taken place for one hundred and eleven years. If this leads to mass unknown graves, you’re walking a long and frightening path, Sean. Presumably, because at the end of it, are the graves of innocent children—victims of those entrusted to help them.”

SEVENTY-NINE

T
hey brought Zeke Wiley to the reform school property in a sheriff’s car. And the sheriff himself was driving. Other police agency vehicles were already there. Cars and people from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were there, too. Forensic workers. People from the coroner’s office stood by, waiting. I counted seven TV satellite trucks and a half dozen small microwave news trucks. National and regional media jockeyed for best positions. Reporters and camera operators set up tripods. A man in jeans and a black T-shirt sat on a backhoe, the engine turned off. Other men from the sheriff’s office had shovels and evidence bags.

Caroline Harper and Jesse stood under the shade of an oak, Jesse comforting her. I watched Jesse study Zeke Wiley’s every step and physical nuance. Even from fifty feet away, I could see the disgust on Jesse’s face. Caroline patted her eyes with a handkerchief. Jesse placed an arm around her shoulders and watched a squirrel bury an acorn. The sky was hard blue, a light breeze from the east. A mockingbird cackled from one of the big oaks.

I stood next to Lana Halley as the sheriff walked slowly with the old man. Neither man spoke. Everyone followed, walking from the main parking lot, between two buildings, past a cottage and toward the small cemetery with plastic PVC pipe as grave markers. No names on any of the graves. Nothing but faded plastic pipe and grass choked with weeds.

Reporter Cory Wilson, with a photographer, snapped pictures of Zeke Wiley leading the procession across the property. The other reporters and videographers followed for best spots to catch the old man and the sheriff in search of a hidden grave—maybe more. The national media picked up Cory Wilson’s series of stories. They were all here. CNN, Fox News, the TV networks. Major newspapers. And everyone watched the slow processional to search for a shallow grave with very deep consequences. The expression on the old man’s face looked redemptive, somehow at terms with what he was about to do—what he was about to reveal after so many decades of hidden secrecy.

Lana glanced up at me and said, “So, just maybe Andy was buried in that small cemetery with the rest of the boys. Some were said to have died in a fire during the twenties.”

“We’ll soon find out.”

Wiley walked past the marked cemetery, more than two hundred feet to a more remote, secluded area. He stopped at the base of a large pine tree, looked to his right and then to his left. He stepped to the center, in a northward direction. It looked as though he was counting silently, his lips moving, calculating distance with each small step he took. When he was about fifty feet north of the lone pine, he stopped and pointed to the ground. “There. He’s buried somewhere right in this immediate area. I need to sit.”

I heard Caroline sob. The sheriff turned and signaled. “Set up the tape here, Brad and Tucker. Everyone else, please keep your distance.” Two men rolled out the yellow crime scene tape, cordoning off a square about fifty feet in four directions, pounding in stakes and wrapping the tape around the top of each stake. Then the sheriff motioned for his team to dig. Everyone formed a semicircle outside the tape, watching the body recovery and forensics teams. The sound
of shovels removing topsoil, the click of cameras, a news videographer raising his tripod and camera. Caroline looked away for a few seconds. A female deputy escorted Zeke Wiley to the shade of an oak. He sat in a foldout chair someone had brought.

A tall man, wearing a shirt with the word FORENSICS on the back, stopped digging with his shovel and knelt down, now using a hand trowel, “Found something. Very shallow.”

There was a murmur in the crowd. More camera clicks. The mockingbird stopped chortling. The sheriff walked up to what now appeared to be a gravesite. He observed as the team used trowels to excavate the soil. The coroner, an older man with a neatly trimmed white beard and bifocals, squatted beside the excavation. He spoke softy with the investigators, nodding his head and pointing to different areas of what appeared to be human skeletal remains.

The sheriff shook his head, swatting a fly, and walked over to speak with other members of his team. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat and spoke to the media and anyone else within earshot. “Folks, this is now a crime scene. You people in the news media, we’ll answer your questions as soon as we can get some definitive results. In the meantime, our investigators and forensics folks will go about their jobs in an expeditious fashion. Seems to me too much time has already passed. There appears to be human remains in that grave. Most likely from a child, considering bone and skull size. We’ll remove the body, and along with the FDLE, conduct DNA and dental tests. We’ll have a news briefing as soon as we know something.”

One network reporter, a lean man with close-cropped white hair asked, “Sheriff, can the coroner estimate how long the body has been there?”

“No, not at this time.”

Another reporter, a woman from CNN asked, “Are you going to search for additional graves?”

As the sheriff was about to answer, Zeke Wiley stood, raising his hand in the air. The sheriff looked at him. “Yes, Mr. Wiley?”

“There are more graves…more are in this area.” His face was flush, his eyes wide, lips pursed, his chest rising and falling quickly.

Reporters circled Wiley, peppering questions. He held up his hands, closing his eyes for a moment, and then looking toward the blue sky, folding his hands as if in prayer.

The sheriff motioned to three deputies. “Ya’ll get him into a squad car. Get the air conditioning running. Give him some water.”

The deputies nodded, walking up to Wiley, one deputy saying to the media, “That’s it for now. Please give this man some room. Show some respect, okay? Mr. Wiley let’s get you in the cool of an air-conditioned car.”

One of the forensic workers, a woman, sleeves up, rubber gloves on, knelt over the grave and used a small brush to remove debris. I watched her. Stop and start. Brush and examine. The expression on her face was intense. Curious. Thorough. Professional. She lifted a long pair of forensic tweezers from her kit. Prodded. Then she lifted something from the hole. It was small, the size of a peanut. She examined it and signaled for the sheriff. He walked over, spoke with her, looked at the object and watched her place it in a small plastic bag.

The sheriff stepped over to the news media. He paused, choosing his words carefully. “One of our investigators located an object lodged into a pelvic bone. We’ll look at it in the lab,
but I’ve been around long enough to know double aught buckshot when I see it. Whoever’s in that shallow grave was apparently shot.”

A reporter started to ask a question. The sheriff raised one hand. “We’ll take questions later.”

I watched a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigator approach the sheriff, talking quietly, the sheriff nodding. The investigator, early fifties, a face that indicated he’s seen some of the worst of the worst, turned and looked at the media. His jacket was off. White dress shirt, sleeves rolled up. Tie down a notch. He said, “In view of what we’ve just found, and for a number of reasons…we need to thoroughly excavate this property. A forensic anthropology team with one of the universities has been following the news stories. Our office received word that they’ve requested permission to come on the property, using ground-penetrating radar to search for anomalies, or skeletal remains. We see no reason to deny their request as long as they work within law enforcement parameters to find and excavate other human remains, should they find them. This might become an arduous process, considering the size of the property, but we extend the invitation for the professor and her graduate students to help us locate more graves, God forbid that they’re really out here.”

A reporter shouted, “Do you think that’s Andy Cope’s grave?”

I looked toward Caroline. She stared stoically, watching the forensics staff continue sifting through dirt and bones.

The investigator said, “We don’t know that. In view of what Mrs. Harper has gone through the last fifty years, if this is her brother’s grave, we hope it’ll help bring closure to her and her family. As you know, we have a suspect in custody. And now we have a body. Is it that
of Andy Cope? We don’t know, but you can quote me on this…we’ll find out, and we’ll do it quickly. The state will rush DNA testing to determine if these are his remains. And if so, I’ve been authorized to let you know the state will pay all costs for removal of the body and a new burial, wherever Mrs. Harper requests. At this time, we’ll conclude the news conference. Thank you.”

I glanced over to Caroline Harper, reporters forming a semicircle around her and Jesse. One reporter asked, “Mrs. Harper, if this proves to be your brother’s remains, what will that finally mean to you?”

She inhaled deeply, looked toward the excavation and turned her head to face the reporter. “It’ll mean that my brother was murdered. And if he was, how many more are buried in here? And whom do we hold accountable for allowing that horrible situation to go on so long and no one to step in and stop it. In my brother’s memory and for other children like him, the monsters who did this and those who do it today…you will go to a place even worse than what you made it for these children. I’ll anxiously await the DNA finding. I don’t have anything more to say. Thank you.” She turned and walked away, Jesse’s arm on her shoulder. He shook his head each time a reporter asked another question. They walked toward her car, the sound of digging behind them, and the mockingbird lifting its head up and singing from an oak tree in front of them.

EIGHTY

M
aybe it was a case of half century’s worth of bottled up guilt. Maybe it was because he was old, frail and thought he was on the verge of meeting his maker. Whatever it was, Zeke Wiley showed investigators where the “black boys were buried.” He said he’d read and followed the case of Elijah Franklin. When Jeremiah Franklin was killed, Wiley told detectives he was horrified by a dream he had the next night—a dream where he said he saw little Eli Franklin still breathing when they tossed him in a shallow grave fifty years ago, the dark earth writhing, a small black hand clawing through the loose dirt.

He remembered Hack Johnson laughing, walking up to the grave and standing in his big boots at the head of the grave, the spot where Elijah’s head was under the topsoil. In less than half a minute, the squirming beneath his boots stopped. They tossed another shovel full of dirt over the boy’s hands, got off work, and went into town to hit their favorite bar.

Forensics investigators unearthed a shallow grave that Wiley distinctly remembered as that of Elijah because of the wicked death the boy had suffered. Some of the skeletal remains were rushed to the same lab that was testing for Andy Cope’s DNA. Detectives paid a visit to Mrs. Franklin, telling her what had happened and took her DNA sample with them.

And now we waited. With the intense national and international interest in the case, the state of Florida accelerated the DNA testing faster than I’d ever seen. I stayed in Marianna for a few days, like much of the news media, waiting for the results.

The Florida Attorney General’s office was working with Lana Halley and a strong-willed grand jury to deliver numerous indictments against almost every male adult member of the Johnson family, facing charges of running one of the largest drug operations in the Florida Panhandle to racketeering, arson and murder.

Jeff Carson was indicted for withholding evidence in potential felony cases involving Johnson family members, and causing innocent people to take the fall and be sentenced to prison. In a news conference, the Attorney General said, “Mr. Carson was involved in this egregious misconduct because he knew he could probably get away with it, which he did…until he got caught. His decision to be above and beyond the law is a flagrant abuse of powers that the people in his district had entrusted in him as chief prosecutor. He will be dealt with and prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law.”

Detective Larry Lee, facing charges of bribery and accepting payoffs for selective law enforcement, took an unpaid leave of absence from the sheriff’s office pending the outcome of the charges. The judge slapped him with an ankle bracelet and a stern warning not to leave the county.

Cory Wilson had tried in vain to secure an interview with the CEO of Horizon and Vista Properties, James Winston, after the corporation rescinded the offer to buy the reform school property. His Gulfstream jet left in the middle of the night, the pilot somehow failing to file a flight plan.

I was filling my tank with gas when Lana called. “Sean, it’s a match. The mitochondrial DNA testing came back. The body in the first grave is Andy Cope. And the child in the second grave is Elijah Franklin. I’m calling Caroline and Mrs. Franklin with the news. Hack Johnson is facing first-degree murder charges. In the meantime, the university forensic anthropologists are conducting ground penetrating radar testing. At first pass they say they’ve found at least a dozen unknown graves. Could be more. Looks like that property won’t be on the auction block for a long time, if ever.”

“Normally, I don’t like attending funerals. But these are two that I wouldn’t miss.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to join you. They’re funerals, but they’re also two reasons to celebrate. We can celebrate because heinous crimes, murders never even on the investigative radar, are seeing justice because you received that letter.”

EIGHTY-ONE

T
he Shiloh Baptist Church couldn’t hold the crowd. Some people gathered near the open doors to the front entrance, using hand-fans to circulate the motionless air. Although it was only 11:00 in the morning, the Florida sun was hot, the air humid. Other people stood in the shade of leafy oaks, listening to the service on a loud speaker wired to the pulpit. Attendees, black and white, packed the old church to pay their respects to the family of a murdered child.