Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7)

by Tom Lowe

  “If the man who allegedly did these things is alive, would Mr. Franklin testify?”

  “He’s considering it.”

  “But he hasn’t said anything in fifty years. And from what you tell me, there’s no physical evidence that can, beyond a reasonable doubt, firmly put this man at the scene the night Andy Cope was killed, correct?”

  “I don’t know. Caroline Harper mentioned a shotgun shell casing…maybe…”

  “Maybe we’d find the gun after half a century. I’ll need a lot more if I’m to present this to a grand jury.” She glanced at the watch on her left wrist. “I have to go. Thank you for coming.”

  Jesse looked out the window to the courthouse square, the lofty oaks barely moving in the warm breeze. He watched an elderly black man in overalls slowly walking down the sidewalk, shuffling by in front of polished stone monuments to war. He eased down to sit on a park bench, tossing a peanut to a squirrel hopping close to him.

  “All I want, and all Caroline Harper wants, is for somebody to look around the school property for hidden graves.”

  “And that takes probable cause and a court order.” She lifted up the file in front of her. “A class action suit, claiming abuse from former residents of the school was tossed out in 2010 because the judge said the statute of limitations had long expired. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement did an extensive review, and those findings were presented to this office. The state attorney, my boss, said that based on the information, he couldn’t prove allegations of abuse. In other words, Mr. Taylor, the assertions aren’t prosecutable.”

  “What if I can get somebody to help me? Somebody to look around with me, a fella with a background in law enforcement.”

  “That’s the job of either the Jackson County Sheriff’s office or the police, depending on the scene of the crime. I’d give them a call.”

  “Already done it. Met with Detective Larry Lee in the sheriff’s department. He gave me every reason why this is not even a cold case ‘cause he says it isn’t even a case ‘til there’s a body.”

  She stood. “I’m sorry for what happened to you as a boy and how that was allowed. Corporal punishment in the state ended in 1968.”

  “There’s a big difference between a spankin’ and a beatin’. And I’d say shootin’ a kid in the back is the ultimate corporal punishment. Thank you for your time.” He turned to leave, lifting his phone, scrolling as he walked to the door, putting on his glasses, mumbling. “O’Brien…got his number somewhere.”

  Lana said, “May I ask who you’re referring to?”

  “Fella’s name is Sean O’Brien. He’s helping Caroline Harper look into what happened to Andy. Why? Do you know this guy?”

  She clutched the file to her breasts and walked Jesse to the door. “Yes, I do know him. I prosecuted a case in Orlando. Mr. O’Brien had been trying to find someone who killed a college girl and her boyfriend in the Ocala National Forest. It involved a drug cartel. He and a Seminole Indian friend entered the forest on behalf of the girl’s mother. And in the end, the state had only one of the accused to stand trial.”

  “Why’d you only have one guy to put on trial?”

  “Because you can’t prosecute dead men. Four of them never made it out of the forest alive.” She paused and exhaled a deep breath. “Mr. Taylor, I want to make this clear to you…do not begin some kind of a vendetta hunt or blood feud in Jackson County. It won’t be tolerated.”

  NINETEEN

  Dave Collins was in his element of plausible denial. Somehow, I thought, you can take fieldwork from the retired intelligence operative, but you can’t screen out the covert gene that makes deception work well. I mailed the package to FBI agent Carly Brown in Tampa, and had just returned to the road in my Jeep when Dave called. “You’ll be meeting with real estate agent Ben Douglas at the gates to the former Dozier School for Boys. Benjamin and I had a nice chat. The local airport can indeed accommodate private jets. I told him that my representative, Sean O’Brien, is my senior advisor, and a man whose judgment in commercial property I trust implicitly.”

  “Did he ask you what you might have in mind for the property?”

  “Indeed. I told him that, as a private equity firm, if I decided to add it to the portfolio of one of our companies, then it’s all about location, price, and the cost of conversion. He was quick to let me know the local zoning board had already given the green light for single and multi-family development, including golf course construction. And he was also quick to point out that there are other bids in and the window of opportunity is closing. Can you be there by four o’ clock?”

  “Shouldn’t pose a problem.”

  “Oh, and one other thing…the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will have a rep there, too. Her name is Lisa Kurz. She’s a public relations person for the state. Maybe she’s there to sell you on the future and gloss over the histories of a dark past.”

  “We’ll see. How’s Max?”

  “In the hands of Nick at the moment. I’m not sure who’s walking whom, but last I saw Max was leading Nick down the dock.”

  Jesse Taylor paced the floor of his small motel room, windows open, a warm breeze coming through the blinds. He wore a white tank top. Jeans. No shoes. He looked through his wallet, retrieving a folded piece of paper. He dialed the number. After four rings, there was a long beep, indicating it went to voice-mail. He said, “Hey Sonia…it’s Jesse Taylor. We met in the sheriff’s office lobby. I need to talk with your Uncle Jeremiah. It’s urgent. I need his number or he needs to call me. You got my number. Call me, okay?”

  He disconnected, lit a cigarette, stepping outside to smoke it. Jesse leaned back against the white veneer wall, traffic stopping and starting at the intersection near the old motel, the smell of diesel exhaust coming from across the road. He thought about Curtis Garwood’s letter, thought about Caroline Harper. Remembering what the old black woman, Jeremiah’s mama, had said on her porch while snapping green beans. ‘After all these years, I don’t pull the covers over me a night without thinkin’ ‘bout my boy, Elijah. Hep me find lil’ Elijah, wherever they put him.’

  Jesse looked across the street, the neon glow of the word Cocktails, coming from a sign high above a bar. At that moment, the neon resembled a lighthouse beckoning Jesse across a troubled sea to a safe harbor, if only for a short stop. He crushed the remains of his cigarette against a steel post, flipping the butt into a pothole in the parking lot. He returned to his room, got dressed and drove three hundred yards to the fleeting promise of confidence.

  The interior of the bar was dark, small wattage lights flickering from overhead fixtures, a Carrie Underwood song on the jukebox, the smell of spilled beer on the mats behind the bar. A middle-aged woman with dark hair pinned up, wiped shot glasses with a white towel, smiling at Jesse when he took a seat at the bar. He looked around—only three customers in the middle of the day. A man sat with a woman in a burgundy booth, stuffing coming from the cracked plastic seat cover. One man sat at the far end of the bar nursing a thin beer in a glass mug.

  “What can I get for you?” asked the woman, setting the white towel down on the bar.

  “Shot of Crown. Can of Bud.”

  “Comin’ up.” She hummed to the song on the jukebox, cracked open a cold can of Budweiser, and poured a shot of Crown Royal, setting them both in front of Jesse. “You wanna run a tab?”

  “That’d work.”

  She smiled and went to the other end of the bar to refill the customer’s mug.

  Jesse knocked back the shot of Crown and took two long pulls from the can of beer, the alcohol giving him a light burn in his throat, quickly hitting his empty stomach. He finished his beer and sat on the stool, reaching in his front pocket, getting out the card with Detective Larry Lee’s name and number on it. A woman said, “Sheriff’s office, Glenda speaking.”

  “Detective Lee, please.”

  “Hold please.”

  Jesse gripped his phone, the alcohol entering his bloodstream, a
Tim McGraw song, Like You Were Dying, coming from the jukebox. “Detective Lee.”

  “Detective, this is Jesse Taylor.”

  “Talk to me, Jesse. You got anything more to go on?”

  “How ‘bout an eyewitness, that good enough for you?”

  “Depends. Who’s your witness?”

  “Promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll get him in a witness protection program if he agrees to testify.”

  “We’ll do what we can. We’re not in the business of endangering witnesses. What’d he see?”

  “Andy Cope’s murder, that’s what he saw. And he’s been scared to tell anyone because he has no trust in the justice system. I’m hopin’ you can prove him wrong, Detective. His name’s Jeremiah Franklin. Lives in the sticks off Stevenson Road, beyond a pecan grove.”

  “Who does he say did it? The perp still alive?”

  “He’s still alive. To get the story and name from Jeremiah, you’ll have to convince him that he’ll be safe. Then, Detective Lee, you can solve what I’d imagine is the coldest case in Jackson County history, at least in the last fifty years.”

  “Does this Franklin have a number?”

  “Don’t you guys ride out and speak to folks face-to-face anymore?”

  “Not after a half-century. He can come in here and talk with us. I’ll call him and extend the invitation.”

  “That’s bullshit. You want me to do your job?”

  “That might be the last job you ever do. You been drinking, Jesse? You’re slurring your words a tad. A few years ago that would have been a violation of your parole.”

  “So you spend time checking me out and no damn time investigating the murder of a child. That’s such crap.”

  “Don’t let the booze talk for you, pal. Be careful driving. You never know who’ll be following you back to your motel. You really don’t want a DUI in my county.”

  TWENTY

  Some places with a dark history have a strong sense of presence, often palpable. It’s something I felt years ago visiting Arlington National Cemetery and Andersonville, the site of a Confederate Civil War prison camp. I sensed this today driving slowly by the closed reform school near Marianna. The steel gray of a razor wire fence juxtaposed in front of a cobalt blue sky with white clouds drifting serenely far above the tree line on the property.

  Prison fences don’t surround most cemeteries, but most cemeteries aren’t the place where the living has died. Here it was different. The brick cottages and other buildings scattered among the live oaks and the pines looked pastoral, resembling a boarding school for children of prosperous families. The institution could have doubled as an elite military prep school, one where trust-fund graduates were groomed and destined for West Point, the Navel Academy or Ivy League colleges.

  It wasn’t.

  If looks can be deceptive, this place, based on Curtis’s letter and what I’d read, could have been a façade for a Hollywood horror movie. The fence went for hundreds of yards. I slowed to a stop well before coming to the main entrance and the gate. I played back the satellite images in my mind. Now at street-level, I had a very good idea of what I was seeing. A large black crow landed at the top of a roof on the closest cottage and called out, cicadas hummed in the pines.

  I looked for the building known as the White House. I knew the basic area where it was, but I couldn’t see it from where I stopped my Jeep. I could see the cottages, rolling landscape, a ball field, maybe an abandoned swimming pool in the distance. It had the trappings of a Hansel and Gretel world—candy cane houses of terror, a place where witches and warlocks ruled and abandoned kids would have to find ways to survive, to outwit the ogres or suffer the consequences. But it wasn’t a Grimm’s fairy tale, it was real—a deserted reform school with more than a century of charade. From the outside looking in, most people would see tranquility, never recognizing deception.

  I reached in my pocket and pulled out the photo of Andy Cope and whispered, “Are you somewhere in here? Maybe with your help I can help your sister.” The big crow called out again and flew away, to the north, toward another field. I looked beyond the fence and spotted a tree line in the distance. I started my Jeep, put it in gear, and headed for the entrance to the Dozier School for Boys.

  After a few minutes, I turned right into a long drive that led to a locked gate across the entranceway. There was a guardhouse, lots of shade from live oaks, dappled sunlight coming through the branches. A pickup truck was parked to the left of the guardhouse. There were two other vehicles, a blue Toyota and a white Chevy Malibu parked in the shade.

  I stopped in front of the guardhouse, could barely make out the man behind the dark glass windows, variegated sunlight reflecting from the glass. I parked beneath one of the oaks along the driveway and got out. A mockingbird danced on a limb above me, its call sounding like a car alarm going off.

  There was movement from both cars. A man in the Toyota finished a phone call and came toward me. A woman in a business suit followed him. The man wore designer jeans, button down white shirt and a dark blue sports coat. His blond hair was gelled, short. The woman wore her brown hair up. I could see a strand of pearls at the base of her neck as she approached. Both were in their late thirties.

  The man extended his hand well before he got to me. “Are you Mr. O’Brien?”

  “That’d be me.” I shook his hand.

  “Delighted to meet you. I’m Ben Douglas. Your employer, Mr. Farnsworth, sings your praises.”

  “He’s too kind.”

  The woman extended her hand and looked up at me. Wide smile. Freshly applied lipstick. High heels. It would be challenging to walk around the property, lots of grass, in heels. That might be a good thing—an early exit. She said, “I’m Lisa Kurz. It’s good to meet you, Mr. O’Brien.”

  “Please, Sean works even better.”

  She smiled. “Your timing is excellent, assuming there’s a strong interest from your company. The state’s had the property on the market for eight months. If you see potential, there’s still time for a bid. Ben will give you the particulars. I can help you with the history of the property and what the state may be willing to mitigate for serious offers.”

  I could tell Ben Douglas was waiting for her to pause so he could begin his pitch. He jumped in and said, “Let’s show you around. I think the property will speak volumes for itself. Mr. Farnsworth mentioned his interest in converting the land into an old Florida-themed development, something that reflects a turn-of-the-century feel, upscale houses, all with front porches—homes that invite neighbors to be neighbors, not strangers. Large backyards. Lots of green space and natural park-like settings. Florida at its finest, like the grand seaside cottages and homes of yesteryear with all modern conveniences.”

  I smiled. “Turn-of-the-century…going back to when this place was envisioned and built.”

  Lisa Kurz didn’t pause a beat. She said, “It was a splendid time in Florida, the winter destination for much of the Northeast and Midwest. But as the state grew with permanent residents, a need for a juvenile facility like this was apparent. The state didn’t want to build something that looked like a prison—after all, these were boys. So they created a rural campus-like setting that had a lot of the attributions of a working farm. It would keep the kids busy, out of trouble, and give them a skill in agriculture.”

  I nodded. “I suppose it’s all about planting seeds. The harvest will tell how well that was done.”

  She smiled, but kept her lips together. Ben Douglas was about to say something when the guard approached. He walked with a light limp to his right leg, carrying a clipboard, mid-sixties, tall, military haircut, black shoes reflecting the sunlight. “How you doin’?” His accent was Deep South, gruff. He wore a silver ring on his right hand with a U.S. Marines insignia in the center. His nametag read: J. Hines

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  He nodded. “I know you’re with these folks. I just need to see an I
D before you walk the grounds.”

  “No problem.” I opened my wallet and displayed my driver’s license, keeping my left thumb over the last few digits. He looked at my picture and then looked at me. As he started to write the number, I closed my wallet, putting it back in my pocket. “If you need a number, you have my license tag. My meeting today with Mr. Douglas and Miss Kurz is confidential, per the wishes of my client.”

  He started to say something, but Lisa interjected. “It’s okay, Johnny. Mr. O’Brien is with us.”

  He stared at me. I could tell he was trying hard to make the connection. The mockingbird flew to a tree above the guardhouse, blurting out car alarm shrieks. Then the guard said, “O’Brien…Sean O’Brien. You have a good visit, you hear.”

  I didn’t know how long my tour of the facility would be. But I did know I’d just been made.

  Johnny the guard knew my name.

  TWENTY-ONE

  It was an impromptu stop. Something unplanned. But, as Jesse Taylor knew, not a whole helluva lot had been planned since reading Curtis Garwood’s obituary. Jesse thought more about death now than ever. Or maybe he was thinking more about life—living life. Maybe if he could find some kind of closure for Andy’s sister, Caroline Harper, he’d find it for himself.

  Jesse spotted the small sign on the one-story building and hit the brakes, looking for a place to turn around. He cut through a parking lot in downtown Marianna and drove back to the building. The sign on the side of the brick read: Jackson County Patriot – On Guard Since 1879. He parked in the lot, picked up the newspaper on the seat next to him and whispered the reporter’s name, “Cory Wilson…let’s see if you’re here.”

  Jesse entered the building, walking down a short hallway decorated with awards and accolades the newspaper and its reporters had won through the years. The reception area was really a long counter, a small stack of newspapers on one end, business cards near a ceramic bowl filled with peppermint candies. People worked at desks in an open office setting, most seemed attached to computer screens. One larger man, with flushed skin, puffy face, strands of comb-over hair feathered across his scalp, ate a hamburger and fries at his desk.