by Lisa Howorth
“Diet Dr. Pepper?” she asked him, wrinkling her nose.
“Diabetic.” He smiled. “Dr. Pepper is like me: ‘so misunderstood.’ A cold-case guy isn’t the most popular guy on the force.” Quickly, all business again, he said, “I want you to be comfortable with this. I won’t keep you long, and I don’t want this to be too much of an unpleasant experience.”
She felt a smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Is there the possibility that this could be pleasant?”
“It can be really unpleasant, stressful, and pointless, or it can be not too bad, and useful.” He sat back in his chair and looked at her—what? Reprovingly? “Your call.”
“Let’s do this,” said James. “We’re ready.”
“I could have explained a lot of this when I called each of you last week,” Stith said, “but the department is trying to keep these cards close to our chest. For this to have the best … the most productive outcome, I figured that to have you all here at once would be the way to go. I hope you agree.”
Mary Byrd spoke up again. “But isn’t this mostly so y’all don’t get scooped by that reporter and look lame and inept? You must know about her, right?” She knew she was being a jerk and needed to stop. Let Nick be the asshole.
Somewhere outside the door, men laughed and walkie-talkies crackled. “This is not exactly going to be a great chapter in the history of our police department. Maybe in the Annals of Great RPD Bungles of the Twentieth Century. But we need to be the ones to solve it, make it public, and get it right. Then she—or anyone—can do what they want with the story. Reporters are not the law, and can’t bring this case to a resolution. We can, though, and I think we will.”
A policeman in uniform opened the door and said, “Hey Sunshine—oops! Sorry, Raji. Want anything from the Sonic?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Stith said. The cop left.
“Sunshine?” asked Nick.
“Yeah,” he smiled. “My motto around here is ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant.’ It beats being called ‘Mud’ I guess.”
They didn’t smile. They were focused on the word bungles. James shifted uncomfortably on his small chair and said, “I have to admit that I feel a huge amount of anger at you guys—not you, but all these people who were involved then, and never figured this out, and here we are again. Or at least, here are most of us.” He gestured at Mary Byrd, Nick, and their mother. “I was only three, and our brother Pete was just a baby.”
“I was in diapers myself when this happened,” Stith said. “But I sure heard about it all my childhood. My mother never let me or my brother out of her sight. The boogeyman was still out there. That has something to do with why I’m personally so interested in this case.” He paused. “I certainly understand how you feel. You’re entitled to that,” he went on. “We—”
“Really? You think you really do understand?” Nick said. His eyes narrowed and his jaw worked.
“Look. Balls were dropped, and a lot was overlooked, for sure. I can’t explain exactly how or why. Not everything, anyway. The guys who were working on this case then are dead or retired, or clueless; their memories can’t be trusted. But that’s my job now—to clean up some old messes. I was brought back down here from New York, where I worked on the Etan Patz case, and I worked the Southside Strangler case, if you remember that. We finally got that … taken care of. That dude is gone.”
“They did a great job on Etan Patz,” Mary Byrd sniped. “When was that? The seventies? and this is nineteen-ninety-six.” She had avoided knowing much about the case, but she remembered that the little New York boy had never been found.
“That case is still open, it’s true, and the investigation is ongoing.” Stith lifted his chin slightly, looking pissed. “But we’ve got DNA now, and all kinds of forensic technology and labs and computers, even here in Richmond. We can do a lot now that we couldn’t do then. In Steve’s case, most of what was needed was all right here, in these files. In most cold cases, that’s true; you just have to start over and review everything. Somehow, through negligence or stupidity or oversight, or, I’m sorry to say, deliberate obstruction—and I think it was all those things—nothing happened. Until now.” Stith picked up a pencil and drummed impatiently on the pile of old, discolored folders in front of him. “So bear with me, okay? That’s why you’re here, so let’s just get to it.”
“Obstruction?” James asked.
Ignoring James, Stith went on. “There are some pro forma things that we need to take care of first before I can discuss any new information. I want to be absolutely sure everything is done by the book this time—no fumbles or mistakes that can prevent prosecution and conviction to the fullest extent of the law. Which is why I don’t want this going public just yet. I’ll ask questions; just tell me what you remember.”
He opened a binder from the pile in front of him and placed his right hand on a tape recorder. “I’ll be taping our conversation. Mainly because my handwriting’s too sloppy and my typing’s too slow.” He grinned, a challenging display of teeth. “That okay with everybody?”
Nobody said anything.
“Okay then,” Stith said. “Rolling.”
Stith spoke for a few minutes, recounting the day of the murder, finding the body the following day, questioning the neighbors, and, Mary Byrd was shocked to hear, Eliot Nelson. Finding the body. Dear god, don’t let him bring out any pictures of that little body, Mary Byrd prayed. Did any of them have any information they hadn’t revealed at the time? They all shook their heads, and he carefully looked at each of them.
Stith seemed deliberately casual, almost uninterested, like a doctor asking about your bowels or libido, but was he looking more pointedly at her? Was it about her diary, and Tuttle? Remembering standing in the Cherry Glen Lane living room, answering that smarmy detective’s questions, she felt her face go hot. Blushing wasn’t something she did often.
Stith picked up a folder. “Photos. Let’s review some of the things I believe you looked at in 1966. You don’t need to look at anything graphic. Unless you want to.”
“No!” said Mary Byrd, looking over at the others, hoping they’d say the same.
James hunched his shoulders and said, “I don’t think we need any of that.”
Stith held up a photograph of a dirty, striped beach towel. “Is—was—this towel familiar to you?”
Nick spoke up. “It’s familiar only because they showed it to me and Mary Byrd then. They said it had blood and semen on it. It didn’t belong to us. I think someone in the neighborhood said they thought they’d seen it hanging on the Tuttles’ clothesline. I’m not sure.”
“I guess I remember that,” Mary Byrd said miserably.
“I never saw anything,” their mother said. “They hardly talked to me at all.”
“What about this footprint?” Stith held up a photo of a mold of an unclear footprint with treads that looked like they’d been made by a tennis shoe.
Nick looked at Mary Byrd. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I saw that. But what would we recognize? It’s not like sneakers now— they were all alike back then.”
Mary Byrd shook her head.
Stith flipped open a notebook of five mug shots, men in their thirties or forties. “Do you remember looking at these before?”
“Yes,” she and Nick said at the same time. They remembered all too well.
Nick said, “These were the known sex offenders in Richmond then, right? Potential suspects?”
“Right,” Stith said. “You should see how many there are now—two whole binders, at least, and more in our new computer files.”
“But isn’t that because you lump twenty-two-year-old guys who’ve been seduced by seventeen-year-old girls in there, too? Those guys are not pedophiles and they’re not dangerous.” Nick’s voice was thick with disgust.
“We’re not here to open up that can of worms right now,” Stith said dismissively. “But were these five mug shots shown to you then?”
“I re
member that Nick and I were freaked out because the guy in the bottom left corner was Mr. Canter, who was a married guy in the neighborhood with kids,” Mary Byrd said. “But these guys were eliminated because they’d figured out, I think, by the footprints that the … the murderer was a younger guy wearing smaller tennis shoes?” She was getting slightly queasy. Maybe she should have eaten a bagel. No crying, no throwing up.
The detective held up another photo. “From the old filing system, F-B-six-seven-A,” he said to the recorder. “What about this one? Were you ever shown this?”
Before them was a photo of an older teenager, ordinary looking except for a vicious case of acne, the kind people didn’t get anymore. What kids used to call a pizza face.
They all looked, and shook their heads. “No. Don’t know him,” said Nick. He passed the photo back.
Stith coughed and shuffled through the folder, drawing out a small photo. He said very clearly, “S-R-six-six-B,” and came around his desk, stopping in front of Mary Byrd. “This one?” he said to her.
Her face burned. They all turned to look at her. “That … that was my boyfriend,” she said. “Eliot.”
“You gotta be kidding,” Nick said angrily. “Where the hell is a mug shot of Tuttle?”
Stith asked, “So you weren’t told anything about Eliot being a suspect?”
“Why are we talking about these guys?” James spoke up. “Can we cut to the chase?”
“I’m getting there,” Stith said. “Eliot Nelson—”
“Eliot Nelson?” their mother said vaguely. “He seemed like … a lovely kid.” She looked at Mary Byrd, who crumpled into herself, horrified.
“Eliot and the other guy I showed you were suspects along with Tuttle. I’m not sure why you weren’t informed of that. Eliot wasn’t a sex offender, but the lead detective had determined that he was homosexual, and he had an … incident in his history.” Stith leaned over his desk, retrieving another photo. He held it up. Tuttle. The sad, moon face stared dully out at them. “S-R-six-six-A,” he said.
“Finally,” said Nick.
“Yes, finally, Ned Tuttle.” Stith took a deep breath and continued. “His tennis shoes match the footprints, the stained towel was thought to be from his family, and, although he passed a lie detector test, his father had dosed him with Valium when he took it. I’m guessing you weren’t told that?”
They shook their heads. Nick, pissed off, said “No. We weren’t.” Mary Byrd’s heart beat crazily. She was confused—what was he saying? Eliot? Tuttle? Either way, she was afraid awfulness was about to crash down on her.
“And of course, there’s the odd letter he sent Mrs. Thornton after Steve was killed,” Stith said. “Which Tuttle dated so it would appear that he was away at school and couldn’t have been involved.”
Mary Byrd tried to control the shaking that seized her. James’s knee was bouncing up and down. He said, “So. Game over? The rest of the physical evidence seals the deal on Tuttle, right?”
“There’s a couple more things I need to show you.” Stith leaned back to grab his Dr. Pepper. He took a long drink. Putting the Tuttle photo down, he picked up a page with a transparent plastic covering, saying, “S-R-six-six-C-O-M-P. Is this familiar?”
It was an amateurish composite sketch in pencil. Nick rubbed his face with his hands and said, “I don’t remember it, but it doesn’t look much like Tuttle.”
Stith moved closer. He had the composite and another sheet in his hands. Not saying anything, he held them up side by side. Then he said quietly, “That’s because it isn’t. This is the guy. This is Steve’s killer.”
They were stunned and speechless. To the recorder Stith said, “We’re looking again at F-B-six-seven-A, with the composite.” It was the unnamed suspect that Stith had shown them before Eliot. In the inept composite, the size and shape of the head, and the eyes, nose, and mouth, looked similar to the photograph, but could be anyone. But the violent acne in the photo and the drawing were unmistakably alike. Mary Byrd looked more closely. The expression on the face in the photograph was blank, but as she focused on his eyes, she thought she could see that they were not quite empty. There was a pinprick of something there, something she couldn’t interpret or give a name to, maybe because she’d never seen it before. The silence was long as they all leaned forward, staring.
Nick was the first to speak. “How? How is he the guy?”
Mary Byrd couldn’t take her eyes off the simple, plain face in the photo, with its terrible, baroque eruptions. “How is it not Ned Tuttle?”
“It was never really Ned Tuttle. But I want to—”
“Is acne supposed to be some kind of proof?” James interrupted. “Why didn’t you just show us this guy from the first?”
Nick said loudly, “What do you mean? Tuttle … he’s the only person the cops ever told us about.”
Stith went back around his desk and put the composite back in the folder, leaving the photo on the desk in front of them. “I realize that now. I didn’t really get that until I started going through files and I found … things that were actually from other cases, both before and after Steve was killed.” He took a deep breath. “I needed to show you the other photos to determine what you hadn’t been told. This will be clearer to you in a minute, I hope, as I explain.”
They waited for Stith to go on. Their mother whispered, “Dear God in Heaven.”
“Ned Tuttle was almost immediately discounted as a prime suspect even though some things pointed to him. The police were aware of this other guy, and all suspicion became focused on him, but they didn’t know who he was. I can’t explain why your family wasn’t told about this, or why the papers never picked up on it. I do have some ideas, which—”
“Ideas?” said Nick, his voice rising. “Are we still going to be talking about ideas?”
Stith rubbed his skinny neck, like he had a crick. “Look,” he said, “I know this is shocking. But I’m laying it all out, if you’ll let me. And I’m going to tell you right now, it’s gonna get worse. But let’s try to get through it. I’ll try to answer any questions you might have. If I can. But there are things I don’t have any answers for; at least not yet. Can I go on?” He looked at them flatly. “Please.”
Nick sat back, arms folded. James’s leg began jiggling again. Mary Byrd wished desperately that she was anywhere but trapped in the dreadful room.
Stith said. “Here are the facts.”
They sat, tense but quiet, while Stith began to unscroll for them the truth—finally, the truth—of how Stevie had been molested and murdered; the technical details of exactly how the delicate little machine that was Stevie had been stopped: stabbed in the neck with a four-inch knife blade more than twenty times, he had choked on his own blood. His shorts—Mary Byrd remembered the kind he wore; baggy brown or navy blue ones with elastic waists, saggy because of all the junk he kept in his pockets—and his underwear had been pulled down around his ankles. Although the coroner hadn’t been able to find evidence of penetration, dark head and pubic hairs had been found on the beach towel, stained with blood and semen, on which Steve had lain. Scrapings from under Steve’s fingernails had been taken.
“Here,” Stith said, “is where Steve’s story ends. Until now. The known pedophiles were discounted and Tuttle was dropped as a suspect, which you were never told: the physical evidence didn’t match up. He never really was the prime suspect. But this man, Jeffrey Zepf, was. Is.”
Stith continued. “They hadn’t been able to catch Zepf—they knew he was out there, but they didn’t have a name for the face at this point—but they pretty quickly figured out that Steve’s killer was the same person who’d molested a series of boys over the previous year, right up to a few weeks before Steve’s murder. The composite was made then, before Steve. All the attacks were in woody areas within a mile of Cherry Glen Lane, and those victims—at least the little boys who dared to come forward—all reported that in spite of knowing better, they’d gone with Zepf, who had said he was
looking for his lost bike. He’d offered them a reward. Once he got the boys to a secluded spot, they would be molested at knifepoint. Although none of those boys had been hurt—”
James interrupted, saying sarcastically, “You mean by hurt that none of them was slashed or stabbed?”
The detective said evenly, “Yes. Of course that’s what I mean.”
Mary Byrd could see that James, easily angered but who’d learned better than his brother or sister how to rein it in, was bowing up. Poor James. He’d just been the clueless old baby at the time, but Stevie’s death had haunted him like it had haunted the rest of them. She put her hand gently on his thigh to stop his jitters.
“All the boys reported that the guy had a bad complexion,” Stith said.
Her mother spoke up. “If all this had happened—if this Zepf person was loose in our neighborhood—why wasn’t there some kind of alert? I can’t get over this. We never heard a thing about this going on. Were the schools told? There was an elementary school and a public playground nearby. We never heard anything. All we knew about was Ned.” She began sniffling and rooted in her bag for a Kleenex. “Ned. Poor child.”
Stith looked tired. “I’m guessing that the families of the boys who’d been molested didn’t want anything made public, to protect the boys. A couple parents didn’t come forward until after Steve’s murder. There were almost certainly other boys who never told anyone at all. These incidents are so traumatic for families. Maybe if more parents and more boys had spoken up, maybe if the department had insisted, as it should have, that every attack be made public, things might have been different. Everybody wants to talk about getting mugged, or their home being robbed, but nobody wants to talk about a sex crime. Victims and families just want to forget about it and go on with their lives, as you know too well.”
