The Dead Detective (16 page)

“Yeah, I do. At least for now.”

“You want Jim and me to keep investigating Nick?”

Harry noted the skepticism in her voice. “That’s right. And come to me whenever you develop anything new. No matter which way it goes, pro or con. IAD is going to want to look over your shoulders. How much you work with them is up to you, but do not let them impede this investigation.”

“Are you going to work with them?” Weathers asked. His eyes were hard on Harry now.

“I’m going to avoid them like the plague,” Harry said. “If they want me they’re going to have to find me.”

C
HAPTER
T
EN

I
t was five-thirty when Bobby Joe Waldo left
his father’s private office. The outer office was already empty, the secretaries gone; the lights were turned off, but even in the faint light that filtered in through the windows Bobby Joe’s face looked drained of color and a nervous tic was visible at the corner of his mouth. His father’s office staff always left at five sharp so he doubted anyone had heard the old man’s angry shouts. But what difference did it make; they had heard them often enough in the past. He exited his father’s suite and headed to his own office farther down the covered walkway. Bobby Joe’s accommodations as associate minister were little more than a twelve-by-twelve-foot box and lacked any of the amenities his father enjoyed. The view outside his one small window was meager; there was no gracefully landscaped pond to look out upon. Instead there was a remaining patch of the dusty scrub pine woodlot that had dominated the land long before the church complex was built. The office furnishings, while comfortable and adequate, were also run-of-the-mill, a mass-produced desk and chair from a nationwide office supply chain, visitors’ chairs and lamps that could be found in any Wal-Mart, and durable low-end carpeting from Home Depot. It was something that normally rankled Bobby Joe when he left his father’s office and entered his own. Today he ignored it as he slumped into his chair, his hands trembling slightly with a mixture of anger and fear.

His father was way over the top about this cop poking his nose around. And the old man didn’t know the half of it yet. Billy Joe shook his head as that thought settled in. That was the operative word:
yet
. Because he was pretty sure the old bastard would find out every bit of it. And then all hell would really break loose. Especially when he learned that one of the church’s cars had been in an accident in the parking lot of a Tampa titty bar, and that his own son had paid off the dancer whose car had been hit. Paid her off and never told the old man what happened. And when he put together the fact that the bar had been a regular hangout for Darlene Beckett, well, then the shit would really start to fly.

Darlene. It always seemed to come back to her. The woman was more trouble dead than she’d been alive. But you had to give it to her. The whole thing started because she decided to get into that kid’s pants, and then pulled off a real winner by somehow getting the kid to clam up so she could pretty much beat the rap. His father had been off the wall about that, and then when the kid refused to repent before the congregation, it really set him off. He smiled momentarily at the memory. The kid’s mother had pretty much told the old man to stuff it when he came up with all the repentance bullshit. And the kid’s father looked like he was ready to rip somebody’s head off, if not the old man’s then Darlene’s for sure. Repentance shit. Every man in the congregation would have given their left ball to fuck Darlene—everybody except his fat, limp-dick old man. And truth be told, maybe even he would, the phony old bastard.

He sat back and smiled as he recalled the first time he’d met her. He’d followed her to the titty bar, and after checking out the room to make sure nobody he knew was there, he’d slid into the seat next to her. She’d turned to him right off, looked him up and down and smiled. And he knew right there that even with all that incredible beauty the woman was nothing but good, old-fashioned trailer trash.

As he thought back on it now, it all seemed to make perfect sense. He’d followed her because his father had made it clear that he wanted someone to get something on her, preferably someone in the congregation: “See to it that she gets her just desserts” was the way old man had put it. So he’d gone on the Internet and checked out the sex offender registry and found out where she lived. Then he’d parked himself outside her apartment and right away it paid off. That first time he’d followed her she went straight to the Peek-a-Boo and he thought he’d hit pay dirt. Then she’d turned those big baby blues on him and he knew there was no way he wanted her back in the slammer. God, sex came off that woman like sweat, and he’d just lapped it up, his dick so hard he’d been afraid to stand up. She saw it, that bitch, and she reached over and gave it a nice little squeeze.

And that was after he’d told her he was a minister. He still didn’t know why he’d done that, except that maybe it was a way to challenge her, or maybe he was still trying to do what Daddy wanted. Shit, that wasn’t it. He’d known that as soon as he’d looked down into that scooped-neck top she was wearing, known right off there wasn’t nothing bad he was gonna do to those beautiful tanned tits that were staring back at him.

Funny thing was that she seemed really turned on by the fact that he was a minister, and she’d asked him if he’d ever read a book called
The Scarlet Letter
. When he’d told her no, she just laughed and said maybe he was just a closet Reverend Dimmesdale. Then she’d taken him home and fucked his brains out. Score another one for Darlene—a fourteen-year-old boy and a goddamn minister.

He’d gone home that night and searched the name on his computer and found out that the Reverend Dimmesdale was this minister in this story who’d gotten boned by this good-looking married woman named Hester Prynne. Just reading that had gotten him hard all over again, and he’d known right then and there that he was gonna ball that woman every time she’d let him.

He spun his chair around and stared out the window at the dusty patch of scrub pine. And he’d done just that; gone back to her every time he could. And that’s when the shit started for him, and now he was drowning in it.

It was seven-thirty when Harry got back to his house, a duplicate copy of the murder book tucked under his arm. He’d planned to spend several hours reviewing everything they had, but when he walked through the door he found Jocko Doyle sitting on the couch.

“Maria made a big batch of roast pork and an even bigger batch of rice and beans.” He ginned up at his adopted son. “So … of course … she sent me over with a ton of it. She’s certain, with this big case, you can’t be eating right. And since you have no woman to take care of you …” Laughter cut off the sentence. “Well, you know the rest.”

Jocko had never referred to himself as Harry’s father, nor his wife Maria as his mother, even though they had always thought of themselves that way. It was space they knew Harry still needed.

Harry grinned back at him. “She’s right … on all counts.”

“She always is,” Jocko said. “The food is in the kitchen, we just need to throw it in the microwave.”

“Let’s do it,” Harry said. “Have you eaten?”

“Yeah, but I can always be talked into a small bowl. You know how I love Cuban food.”

Jocko was tall and slender, and despite his fifty-five years his body was still as rock hard as the cattleman’s son he had once been. He had a long nose and receding salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that were the same soft blue as a Florida morning, eyes that always seemed to have a smile hiding inside.

When they were seated at the kitchen table Jocko’s eyes clouded and he looked like he was holding back on something he wanted to say. Harry suspected that he knew what it was.

“I got a call from a friend of mine,” Jocko finally began. “A dick who worked your mother’s case.”

Harry nodded. “I got a call too. A guy I know up at the prison.”

“Nobody from the Hillsborough state’s attorney’s office called you?”

Harry shook his head.

“Those pricks,” Jocko said.

“Just business as usual. Don’t let the victims get in the way of the paperwork.”

“Yeah, it never changes,” Jocko said. “How are you handling it?”

Harry shrugged, then drew a long breath. “As best I can.”

“It must be a bitch, you up to your ears in this Beckett murder at the same time. How’s that going?”

“Slower than I’d like.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Harry thought that over. “You did a stint in community relations, right?”

“Yeah, about a year; mostly going to lunches and holding hands with community leaders. It was the longest year of my life.”

“You ever come across a Reverend John Waldo?”

Jocko furrowed his brow, thought a minute. He slowly began to nod his head. “Yeah, I remember him. He ran a small store-front church on Alternate 19, just up from Gulf to Bay, back about twenty years ago. As I remember it, the Scientologists wanted the property—that’s back when they were buying up as much land as they could get in Clearwater, and Waldo and his little church really cashed in. I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“He built a bigger church—a real big one—up on Keystone Road, not far from the Hillsborough County line.”

“I’m not surprised. The Scientologists were paying top dollar. And they usually got what they wanted. Hell, they ended up with that whole area of downtown.”

“You ever come across his son, Bobby Joe Waldo?”

Jocko stared off, thinking again. “I don’t think so. He have a sheet?”

Harry nodded.

“You think he and his old man are tied into this Beckett murder?”

“I do. I’m not sure exactly how, though my gut tells me they’re in there somewhere. But I’m all alone in that. Right now everybody else who’s working the case is looking hard at somebody else.”

“Who?”

Harry told him.

Jocko sat at the table shaking his head. “That’s bullshit. I know Nick Benevuto. He worked for Clearwater P.D. before he jointed the sheriff’s department. The man’s a complete ass but he would never do that. Even if he was banging her and got pissed off because she was stepping out on him, there were a dozen ways he could have set her up. And there are plenty of guys who would have busted her for him. Hell, we all know how easy it is to violate a parolee or probationer. And the way the media was all over that woman, even a hint that she was out of line and she would have found herself dodging bull dykes in the shower at county jail.” He forked some rice and beans into his mouth and continued to talk around it. “Your theory about those ministers makes a lot more sense to me.”

They talked about the Reverend Waldos, father and son, as they finished their meal. It had been more than a month since Harry had eaten one of Maria Doyle’s Cuban dinners and he wolfed down two platefuls. When he finished he found Jocko grinning at him.

“What?”

“I was just thinking how happy Maria is gonna be when I tell her how much you enjoyed your dinner. It won’t be long before she has me back here with another care package.”

“Care packages are always welcome.”

Jocko smiled again, but the smile slowly faded. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Let’s talk about your mother and what’s going to happen over the next few weeks.” He paused. “Or better yet, what you want to happen.”

Harry stared at him and for a moment Jocko saw the small boy he had taken into his home all those years ago.

The moment drew out. Finally, Harry spoke. “All I know is that I don’t want her out. I don’t want her to be part of my life again. I don’t want to have to deal with her every day, or every week, or every month.”

“If she goes up for parole, and gets it, you could ask the parole board to make that a condition … that she not have any contact with you … and if she tries, that it violates her parole and she goes back into the slam.”

Harry began to slowly shake his head. He stared down at the table. “Every year, on the anniversary of … of what she did … I go to the cemetery where Jimmy’s buried and I tell him that she’s still inside … and then … then I promise him that I’ll make sure she stays there.” Harry did not tell him that he also went to the prison, but he suspected that Jocko knew.

“If that’s what you want then you’re going to have to fight for it. You’re going to have to request to be heard before the parole board, and you’re going to have to present a case, with evidence, that she shouldn’t be released. But remember, you’ll probably have doctors—shrinks who’ve treated her—saying she’s not a danger to you or anyone else, so you’re going to have to make a pretty strong case.” He paused. “And she’ll be there too, Harry. And I wouldn’t put it past her to try to steal the show by telling you how sorry she is and how much she needs your forgiveness.”

Harry’s eyes hardened. “She won’t steal anything. I have her letters. The ones she’s written to me every year. And all of them, every single, fucking one,” he hesitated to take a deep breath, “say how glad she is that Jimmy is with Jesus, and how she wishes I was there too.” He shook his head. “The woman’s just as crazy as she ever was, and if she ever gets out it won’t surprise me to wake up one night and find her standing over my goddamn bed with a butcher’s knife in her hand.” Harry’s fists clenched tightly. “And what am I supposed to do then? Grab my gun and send her straight to hell where she belongs?”

Jocko reached across the table and covered one of Harry’s fists with a large hand. The boy said he didn’t want her to be part of his life anymore. Not for a day, or a week, or a month. But she was already there, just as strongly as if she were standing in the room with them right now.

Jocko sat back and stared across the table at his adopted son. “Over the years she wrote to Maria several times, and a couple of times to me. For the life of me, I don’t know how she ever found out who we were. Foster care and adoption records are supposed to be secret. But crazy people always seem to be able to find those things out.”