“Ankle fractures and a grill pattern higher up on the thigh indicated that he was erect, on his feet, when hit, then went airborne. His head struck the windshield or roof of the vehicle that hit him, resulting in a scalp laceration and a depressed skull fracture. Then he fell off to the side. Typical scenario in pedestrian versus car fatalities.
“He had other fractures and internal injuries, but the head injury was the primary cause of death.”
Stone stared at the grotesquely sprawled corpse on the blacktop and remembered the husky young cop whose strong arms had lifted him up on the darkest night of his childhood.
“I understand they never found the car or driver,” he said. “Was there much physical evidence?”
The doctor frowned at a printout. “Flecks of white paint on the victim’s clothing and in his hair, possibly from a GM vehicle, and bits of glass and plastic from a broken headlight and turn signal lens embedded in his skin. Nothing much good without a vehicle to match it to.”
Stone frowned. That should have been enough to identify a make and model, he thought. “This was a divided stretch of roadway?”
“Yes, sir. Still is. Northbound. Drive it every day myself. There’s a gully, a big, wide, grassy median that separates it from the southbound lanes. Joggers often use the bicycle path, which is about three feet off the roadway. That’s where this fellow was hit. See here, in this photo? You can see the scuff mark made by his running shoes on impact.”
“The road looks straight.”
“Like an arrow,” Dr. Jensen said. “Due north.”
“So the weather was clear, the road straight, and he was jogging several feet off the pavement. How do you think he happened to be hit?”
The doctor shrugged. “Anybody’s guess. Distracted drivers take their eyes off the road for all sorts of reasons. To retrieve a dropped cigarette, change the radio station or CD, make a call, swat an unruly child. Might have swerved to avoid another vehicle, or an animal darting across the roadway.”
Stone frowned.
“Maybe the driver had been out drinking all night and was impaired,” Jensen said. “Could be why he didn’t stop.”
Stone rubbed his chin as he studied the pictures, one at a time. “Who found him?”
“A woman passerby called nine-one-one from a pay phone at a Texaco station three or four miles north of the scene. Saw a dead body in the road as she drove by. Said she didn’t stop because she was late for church. Deputy drove out to check her story and, sure thing, there he was.”
“He’s hit by a northbound car,” Stone said, thinking aloud, “hurled off to one side, lands out in the roadway. But if he was thrown to the side, how did he get tire impressions on his clothes and his skin?”
“Let me see that.” The doctor examined the two photos Stone handed him. “Often, after a pedestrian is hit, other motorists run over the body.”
“Right,” Stone said. “But the lanes are northbound. Look at the impressions. You can see where a tire backed up, rotating his T-shirt down toward the pavement, dragged his clothing downward across his skin. Then there’s another impression….”
“He should not have tire marks.” The doctor’s eyelids fluttered behind his glasses.
“But here,” Stone said. “It looks like a wheel depressed the side of his torso—it’s even more obvious in the morgue pictures—mashing it down as a tire backed up and over his body.”
They stared at each other.
“I see what you’re suggesting.” Jensen ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Maybe my first instinct, my gut reaction, was right.” He got to his feet to study the photo more closely, under a high-intensity lamp.
“You know,” he said, almost as an aside, “that I am at the mercy of the police investigators. Some are better than others. The deputy who handled the scene was convinced this was a simple hit-and-run accident.”
“Was he a trained, full-time traffic homicide investigator?”
“No, not much call for one in these parts back then.”
“Do you mind if I borrow the file for a consultation with our chief medical examiner? He’s an expert on pedestrian-crash reconstruction.”
“No, not at all,” Jensen said. “I’d be extremely eager to hear his conclusions. Give my regards to your chief. I did an internship in his office years ago, the high point of my professional career, the greatest learning experience I ever had. In Miami, pathologists see cases they wouldn’t see in a hundred years anywhere else.”
“Not always, sir,” Stone said. “Sometimes pretty bizarre things happen in places you’d least expect.”
He signed a receipt for the file and left, a man in a hurry. As he pulled out of the parking lot, Dr. Jensen emerged from the building and waved him down.
“I just checked our log for that date. That same Sunday a local boy dove off a pier into the lake and fractured his neck. Drowned before anyone realized he was in trouble. That evening a light plane crashed. A local county official, his wife, and daughter, coming home from a family reunion in Mobile. Killed all three. Might be a slow day in Miami, but for this office it was a full house.
“I have an assistant now, but back then I was the only doctor, running a one-man office.”
“Sure,” Stone said. “I understand. Sometimes things fall through the cracks.”
He found his way back onto Alligator Alley, then drove east through the dark, his mind racing far ahead of his headlights.
CHAPTER 11
His grandmother’s bungalow was dark, the street quiet. It was three A.M. She was an early riser, but Stone was too impatient to wait. He rang the bell, then knocked. She appeared at the door more quickly than he expected, blinking out into the glare from the motion-detector lights he had installed beneath the eaves on each side of her house.
“It’s me, Gran.”
“Sonny, are you all right?” She wore a thin housecoat over her nightgown. “What’s wrong?”
“Hope I didn’t scare you. Sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I don’t sleep much anymore.”
He followed her inside.
“You’re up early.”
“Haven’t been to bed yet, Gran. And it looks like I won’t be for a while. I drove over to Immokalee.”
He thought he glimpsed a flicker, a slight reaction in her eyes, but might have been mistaken. The living room was dark, and the only light came from her bedroom and outside the windows.
“You want some breakfast?”
“I’da gone to Denny’s if I wanted breakfast. I’m not hungry, Gran. Don’t think I will be for a long time. I could use some coffee, though. It’s gonna be a long night and I need to talk to you.”
She pulled her cotton wrapper closer around her, slowly tied the belt, then shuffled into the kitchen in her pink slippers.
He sat at the kitchen table, watching her as though she were a stranger.
She set the steaming cup in front of him. “Sure you don’t want me to fix you some eggs?”
“No,” he said impatiently. “I didn’t come here at three A.M. for eggs. Sit down, Gran, please.”
Eyes wary, she sat across from him.
“Gran, remember the police officer who came here to bring us the news the night Momma and Daddy died? His name was Ray Glover.”
She sighed, pursed her lips, and gave a slight nod.
“He’s dead, Gran. Ray Glover’s dead.”
“Could a told you that.” She shrugged. “Man’s dead and gone for years, God rest his soul. That why you drove all the way over to Immokalee? I could a saved you the trouble.”
“But you didn’t, Gran.” He stared at her accusingly. “Why?”
“Was none a your business. It had nothing to do with you, boy.”
His lips tightened. “Yes, it did. It had everything to do with me. What else didn’t you tell me?”
“Drink your coffee, Sonny, ’fore it gets cold.”
He took a sip. His stomach churned and he put the cup down.
>
“Glover’s death was no accident, Gran. I think he was murdered.”
She nodded slowly in agreement, her eyes knowing.
“You knew?” he said, in disbelief.
“Only thing that made sense to me.”
“Damn, Gran. You talked to him! You wrote to him! Tell me about it.”
“Nuthin’ to tell.”
“What did you talk about? Did he say why he left the department? Did he know why Momma and Daddy were killed? Why did you stay in touch? What did he tell you?”
She averted her eyes. “Now, Sonny. It was a long time ago. Most days I can’t remember what somebody tol’ me last week. And even if I did, it’s none a your concern.”
“They were my parents!” His voice rose angrily.
“I did the best I could for you. Still do.”
“I know, Gran,” he said more gently. “But I can’t stand you keeping secrets from me. You always helped me when I needed you.”
“I won’t help you get killed like your father!”
“What does that mean?”
“Nuthin’.” She shrugged infuriatingly.
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“Not me! It’s you. Too stubborn for your own good!”
“Whatever happens, I’m pursuing this anyway.” He sprang to his feet, and forgetting his bruised hand, slapped his palm down so hard that coffee slopped from his cup onto the tabletop. He winced at the sudden pain.
“Sonny, what’s wrong with your hand?”
“Nothing! What do you care? I won’t give up! Whether you help or not, I won’t quit. With you or without you! How can you be so cold?” He stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
She remained huddled, a small figure, in her chair and didn’t look up.
They had never exchanged such angry words. Never. Even when he was a teenager he’d been respectful, aware that she didn’t put up with, or deserve, any sass.
They always shared, able to talk about anything, open and direct, never devious or evasive. Stone drove to the station, read through his notes, the Collier County file on Glover’s death, then highlighted every mention of Glover in his parents’ homicide file. At six A.M. he got on the phone and tracked down Bill Rakestraw, the department’s best traffic homicide investigator.
Stone’s energy flagged, sucked dry by remorse. His grandmother was so frail. She had been his rock, had raised him all alone on a housekeeper’s salary, had taught him a love of reading and justice, had cultivated his curiosity. They had explored and experienced everyplace in South Florida that a bus could take them, even places where they weren’t always welcome. She had always told him, “You can’t be what you can’t see.”
She had opened the world to him, made him the man he had become. He wanted to make her proud, to care for her the way she had cared for him. She was all he had. He never wanted to hurt her. That was the last thing he wanted to do. Yet he had shouted and slammed the door.
He checked his watch. He still had time to apologize, to try again to explain why he had to do what he was doing.
He drove back to the little bungalow where he’d grown up.
She didn’t answer the door. He didn’t think she’d gone out yet. He called out. No answer. She might be watering her herb garden, he thought. She always said early morning was the best time. He went around to the back of the house. She wasn’t there.
As he returned to the front, he paused to peer in the kitchen window. Perhaps she was in there, listening to the radio, and hadn’t heard him.
Something caught his eye. One of her pink scuffs on the kitchen floor. Then he saw her, lying next to it, facedown.
CHAPTER 12
“Sergeant Burch,” Emma said shrilly, hands on her hips. “Will you please pick up your phone.”
“Who is it?”
“Greta Van Susteren.”
“Tell her I like her show and she should call PIO. We didn’t come in early today to talk to the press.”
Moments later, Emma was back.
“Your phone,” she said. “Answer it.”
“No.”
“All right!” She marched back to her desk. “A man says he knows who killed Pierce Nolan. I’ll tell him to call PIO.”
“Probably a wacko nutcase.” Burch reached for his phone. “Newspaper stories always bring them out of the woodwork.”
“Thanks for taking my call.” The man sounded lucid, soft-spoken, and slightly apologetic.
They always do at the start, Burch thought.
“I read the story in the newspaper.”
So did half a million other readers. Burch wondered if they’d all call. The story had now taken on a life of its own, spreading across the nation via wire services, network television, radio, and the Internet. Hundreds more like this one would soon be calling.
“I don’t know anything about the dead babies.”
Burch nodded and rolled his eyes.
“But I know who killed Pierce Nolan. It’s been on my conscience all these years. I have no reason to keep it a secret any longer.”
“Okay, pal, who did it?” Burch picked up a pencil.
“My brother. My younger brother, Ronnie. Ronald Stokoe. That’s S–t–o–k–o–e.”
“And what makes you think your brother murdered Pierce Nolan?” Burch doodled on a desk pad and wondered if Greta Van Susteren believed in Feng Shui.
“He was there, at the Shadows, that night,” the man said. “He called home from a pay phone down on Bayshore Drive. He begged me to come pick him up. His clothes were all torn and bloody. He was totally panicked, never saw him so scared. He said something terrible had happened.”
Burch stopped doodling and printed the name Ronald Stokoe on his pad.
“What was he doing up at the Shadows? Why was he there?”
“He wouldn’t say then, but I know. Those young girls. The Nolan girls. Ronnie’s had a problem all his life, since he was eleven. His thing was window peeping when he was a teenager. Then he started climbing in the windows to steal the underwear of the women he watched. After that he’d climb in windows to wake them up, or hide in a closet and wait for them to come home. He’s been in and out of jail on sex charges all his life. He was just paroled from prison a couple of years ago after a rape conviction.”
“Pierce Nolan was killed more than forty years ago. How can you be sure we’re talking about the same night?”
“As I drove Ronnie away, police cars and an ambulance, with flashing lights and sirens, went flying past us in the opposite direction, going to the Shadows. The next day it was all over the news. I was in the army then. My military records will confirm I was home on leave when it happened.”
“What’s your brother’s date of birth?”
“May tenth, 1944. He was seventeen then.”
“Where’s he staying?”
“At home, my folks’ old house over near Mercy Hospital.”
“Why didn’t you report this before?”
“To protect our parents. I kept quiet for them. They were in poor health. It would have killed my mother. There was just the two of us kids. He was the youngest, their favorite, my little brother. He begged me not to tell anybody. Promised to straighten out. He was bleeding. I took him to a clinic, a place up in Miami Shores where they didn’t ask any questions. They patched him up.”
“What made you call today?”
“My parents are gone now. I saw the news story and decided there was no reason to protect him anymore. It’s not worth it. Ronnie was always in trouble. He broke my parents’ hearts over and over. They bailed him out, hired lawyers and shrinks. They’d go see him in jail and in prison. They worked hard all their lives. Any money they ever managed to put aside for their own retirement, they wound up spending over and over to bail him out of trouble.
“I was the oldest. I never gave them a moment’s grief. Do you know that when they died, they left the house, all their assets, what little they had left, all to him?
“They wro
te in their wills that I was a wonderful son, capable of taking care of myself. That’s why they left everything to Ronnie. He needed it more, they said. They left him everything it took them a lifetime to accumulate. He was in trouble again in a heartbeat. I’m tired of covering up for him. He’s never changed.”
“When you picked him up that night, did he have the gun?”
“No, I never saw it.”
“Did he have access to a shotgun?”
“My father had guns he’d used for hunting. I think there was a double-barreled Remington. I was away in the service for four years. By the time I got out, the guns were gone, along with a whole lot of other stuff, that Ronnie either stole, or had been sold by them to help get him out of trouble.”
Leonard Stokoe sounded resentful, weary, and truthful.
“Is your brother home now?”
“Probably. He can’t hold a job.”
Ronald Stokoe’s adult record began at age eighteen.
“Look at his rap sheet!” Riley unfurled a printout as long as she was tall. Scores of arrests over the years: multiple counts of loitering and prowling, trespassing, window peeping, indecent exposure, masturbating in public, lewd and lascivious conduct, breaking and entering, assault, indecent assault, attempted sexual battery, and rape.
“And these are just the times he got caught.”
Riley had been a rape squad lieutenant for years. Stokoe was right up her alley.
“About the only crime he’s never been arrested for is homicide,” she said. “And that may be an oversight we can remedy. Postpone your trip upstate,” she told Burch, “until we have a better take on Stokoe. The escalation of his offenses makes sense.” She pored over his record. “Many rapists start out as Peeping Toms, but as their fantasies progress it’s not enough to merely look in a window and fondle themselves. Eventually invading a home to masturbate in a woman’s underwear is not enough, they need to touch the woman herself.
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