Black Coral

by Andrew Mayne

  I do the math in my head. Latrelle’s too young to be the Swamp Killer, but I keep that to myself. I’m sure they already know that. The danger of pulling too tight of a net is that if you’re wrong about something major, and you almost always are, you run the risk of missing the actual bad guy. The cops thought they were looking for an older white guy and a box truck with the Beltway sniper, not a black man and his teenage companion in a sedan. Ted Bundy slipped through several dragnets because people misidentified his hair color and his vehicle.

  Maybe Sleazy Steve was an accomplice to the Swamp Killer . . . maybe my connection is an incredible coincidence. You have to take a look at all the weirdos. Sometimes they know something. Oddly enough, sometimes they talk.

  Denton pushes a stack of folders toward Hughes and me. “These are some of the people we want interviewed. We don’t have enough probable cause to ask them to come in and do taped interviews, and, frankly, we don’t have the space. We’re wall to wall with weirdos here. Could you guys take a look at those?”

  Hughes and I exchange glances. This is basic work. The translation of what Denton just said is that he and his crew here are going to be talking to the real suspects while Hughes and I go interview every guy that got popped for taking a piss near an elementary school.

  Hughes reaches over and flips through the stack of folders. There look to be a few dozen. That will mean days of driving all over South Florida and likely nowhere near the killer.

  In a word, it’s insulting. I’m not sure how to phrase it the right way.

  “Background on misdemeanors?” asks Hughes, showing uncharacteristic disdain. “We were hoping to do something a little more . . . involved.”

  “It is involved,” says Denton.

  “You ever take the lead on a murder investigation?” Detective Wesley asks, directed at me.

  “You ever find a murder scene that wasn’t handed to you?” asks Hughes, interjecting on my behalf. “You’re here because of what she found under your nose.”

  While I appreciate the chivalry, I can tell this is not going to have the desired effect. Hughes just gave Wesley’s ego a smack to the nose, and the man doesn’t seem like the type to back down.

  “Okay, why don’t you canal cops tell us what you’d like to do.” Wesley gestures to the monitor. “Do you want to take the lead here? Want to talk to these perverts? Think you can get some confessions?”

  I shake my head. “That’s not what we’re asking.” I know I should play nice and figure out how to get what I want later.

  “That’s a good girl,” says Wesley.

  There’s a loud banging sound. I realize it’s my chair hitting the back wall as I leap to my feet and lean on the table with my knuckles down, my face in his face while I practically bare my teeth at the man.

  Hughes covers his eyes. “Oh jeez.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say as evenly as I can through gritted teeth. “I missed that. What did you say?”

  “Lady, I got too much seniority and I’m too close to retirement to care what you say to Human Resources.”

  “Fuck Human Resources. Ever have your nose broken by a girl?” He blinks, unsure how serious I am—which makes two of us.

  “Sit down, McPherson,” Denton commands. “Wesley, don’t be such a damn cliché.”

  Hughes slides my chair back under me, and I take a seat, doing my best to not act like I made such a big deal out of it and failing horribly.

  There’s condescension and then there’s asshole-level condescension. I can handle the first—god knows I do my share of it. But the weaponized kind where he calls me a girl as a put-down just makes me want to go all prison yard—which is fine in the high school parking lot, but not in a multiagency task-force conference room.

  Denton tries to defuse things by directing his attention to my partner. “Hughes, what would you and McPherson rather be doing for the task force?”

  Hughes keeps his stare fixed on Wesley. “You mean us canal cops? Besides not dealing with bullshit put-downs? She can explain it better than me.”

  I use this opportunity to speak as calmly as I can. “We were at Chadwick and Timm’s house and noticed something about all the murder scenes. Each house is situated in a somewhat isolated spot. In cul-de-sacs, at dead ends, or in large lots.”

  “We’re aware of this,” says an FBI agent named Bridget Jansen.

  “Yes, well, we think the killer might be choosing his victims that way—finding the location and then the target. It makes more sense that way, rather than randomly targeting a pretty woman and hoping she lives in an isolated spot,” I explain.

  “This was also considered,” says Denton. “What can you tell us that’s actionable?”

  “We’d like to go over all the reports and home security camera footage. We’d like to see if there’s anything that may have been missed.”

  “Missed?” says Wesley. “Missed by the eight detectives we had on that case? We have hundreds of pages of logs and transcripts. We tracked every FedEx package, every cleaning lady, every stray dog in that area for several months back. What do you think we missed?”

  While he’s challenging me again, it’s not out of bounds, although I can see him waiting for me to put on another demonstration.

  “Probably nothing. But we’d like to have a look.”

  Denton shakes his head. “It’s a waste of time and resources.” He points to the pile of misdemeanor perverts. “That’s where I need your attention. If that fails, then we can go back and revisit prior work. But right now is not the time for us to start second-guessing each other.”

  “I think that’s a mistake.”

  “Noted. Is there anything else?”

  “Everything we want is just sitting in boxes collecting dust,” I plead.

  “McPherson, I don’t have people looking over your shoulder questioning you; maybe you should show the same respect if you want to be part of this task force.”

  I want to tell them that now is not the time to put our egos first. I want to remind him that the killer is still out there. But I’m facing a wall. It’s almost like they’re waiting for another murder so they can have fresh evidence to examine, but I can’t say that aloud.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  NIGHT FISHING

  I stare at the moon across the water beyond the pier and the ghostly halo that surrounds it. Behind me, George Solar’s footsteps grow closer. My stomach is knotted in anxiety, not because I’m afraid of what might happen with the stolen-goods buyer we’re here to talk to on Pompano Pier, but because I’m afraid of what George is going to say to me.

  I turn away from the waves and see him walk past a row of benches and step around a fishing rod and a man half-asleep on the railing. His steady gaze meets mine, and I can already imagine the thoughts going on behind it. But in the months we’ve known each other, I’ve found it works best if I shut up and let him talk.

  “So, I got a call from Denton,” he says. “He gave me quite an earful.”

  “Yeah . . . I . . .”

  He holds up a hand. “Then Wesley gave me a call. We go a ways back.”

  “Uh, yeah. Um . . .”

  George shakes his head. “I’m not going to rub your nose in what you did. You know it. I know it. And now Denton’s asked that I ask you to step off the task force.”

  Blood rushes to my head, and I’m tempted to shout an expletive. Instead, I count to ten . . . then to twenty. “What did you say?”

  “I agreed.”

  “What?”

  “What am I supposed to do? Keep you on and let them send you all the grunt work, while I could be using you for more important stuff, like the New River Bandits? If we want the UIU to be something, that something can’t be done from the sidelines.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing? Putting me on the sidelines?”

  “Well, to stretch the analogy, I’m taking us off the field. I’m pulling the UIU out of the Swamp Killer case completely. It’s their investigation now. It
was since the moment we found the bodies in the swamp. It’s too big for us, and if they can’t let us play at their level, then screw them.”

  I get his logic, but it’s frustrating. This is my case. These victims . . . I’m the only one who knew where to look. I’m the only one who cared.

  “This sucks,” I reply.

  “Correct. Let’s be honest, we just don’t have the resources to put together an investigation of this scale. It’s not what we were built for. They’re good at their thing—let them do it.”

  “Are they?” I ask.

  “Are they what?” George replies.

  “Are they good? You weren’t there, but I gotta say, I have my doubts.”

  “It’s not as if we have a choice but to leave them to it, Sloan. We don’t have the people. We don’t have connections with the district attorney.”

  “It wasn’t like I asked them to treat us as equals, just with a little respect. One of us should have been in the meeting where the real decision making happened,” I reply.

  “We’re not there yet.”

  “We? Or do you mean me?” I ask. “Would they have denied you a seat at that table?”

  “I didn’t want it. You don’t want it. Trust me. Half their time is spent going over lunch menus.”

  “That’s just it. That’s my problem. They’re nine-to-fivers. They clock in and clock out. If another murder happens while they’re at their kid’s Little League, whoop dee do.”

  “You just can’t walk into a room and tell a bunch of experienced police that they’re doing it wrong. Because chances are, they’re the ones who know what they’re doing and you aren’t, and if you go running off at the mouth that they’re doing things wrong, it could be a career ender . . . for all of us.”

  “So what are you saying?” I ask, feeling challenged.

  “You gotta read a room, McPherson. There’s a difference between getting what you want and having a tantrum.”

  “I didn’t have a . . .” My words fade. Yeah, I kind of did.

  The boards of the pier shake as someone else comes walking in our direction. It’s a man with several days’ worth of beard growth, a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and a rod and tackle. From his reddish complexion, it looks like he’s got more beer in that tackle box than lures.

  He places the box near George’s feet and casts his line into the surf. “Checking out the conditions?” the man asks George.

  “Thought I might bring my own rod out here.”

  “She your daughter?” he asks, looking at me.

  “Stepdaughter. Pain in the ass.” George pulls a folded slip of paper from his pocket and hands it to the man.

  He opens it and takes a look. “Huh. Just the dome?”

  “Yeah. My friend lost his to a storm.”

  The paper contains the description of a ninety-thousand-dollar satellite system for a yacht that enables internet connectivity, a phone line, and that kind of thing. George is asking the man if he can find one on the black market.

  “I can get you a Korean one, just as good, for half of what you’re offering,” says the man.

  “It has to be that one. My client is very specific.”

  Very, very specific. The only satellite system matching the description that’s in this hemisphere is mounted on a mast on a yacht sitting in a marina in Fort Lauderdale right now. It’s also a boat we control and have under surveillance.

  “Let me text a friend,” says the man as he types into his phone. “How soon do you need it by?”

  “We need to have it in the Bahamas in two days,” says George.

  The man looks up from his phone, skeptical. “Why not just ask the manufacturer?”

  “My client isn’t into paper trails.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes me suspicious.”

  “We can talk to someone else.”

  “Hold up. Let me see if my friend has one lying around the warehouse. Okay?” He taps into the phone. “Okay . . . he thinks he can do it. But it won’t be at that price.” He flashes his phone at George and shows the amount: $65,000.

  George laughs. “That ain’t going to happen. We’re on a fixed budget. It’s forty-five thousand dollars.”

  The man texts his friend back. “This comes out of my commission.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “He’ll do it for fifty thousand,” the man says.

  “What part of ‘I only have forty-five thousand dollars’ isn’t clear?” asks George.

  “Damn it.” The man dials his phone and walks away from us, covering the mouthpiece. I can’t make out the words, but the emotions are clear enough. He comes stomping over to us. “Half up front.”

  George shakes his head. “All on delivery.”

  The man talks into his phone again, then relays the message. “No deal. Half up front.”

  “Nice talking to you. I’m sure someone else can find it in their warehouse.” George starts to walk away, and I follow.

  The man shouts into his phone behind us, afraid that we’re going to take our business to some other crook. We just keep going.

  We’re fifty feet away when he comes running up to us, his hand over the phone like it’s an old-school handset with no mute button. “What about Bitcoin? Can you pay in that?”

  Bitcoin is safer for them if it’s a sting. All they have to do is send a courier that has no idea what’s going on and wait to see if the money is transferred.

  “I’ll pay you in Chuck E. Cheese tokens for all I care. Whatever,” says George.

  “Okay. We’ll let you know if we can find one in stock,” the man replies.

  “Better make it soon before I check some other warehouse.”

  The man resumes fishing and takes a bottle of beer from his cooler and pops the cap. We start walking toward the parking lot.

  “You sure our dome is the only one they can get?” I ask George once we’re back in his truck. The plan is to catch them in the act of stealing ours, not trying to arrest whoever shows up to sell it. But if there’s a comparable satellite dome anywhere else in Florida, we could be sending the bad guys somewhere we don’t want to.

  “I’ve asked Marine Patrol and coast guard. They tell me that’s the case. But, yeah, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” He glances back at the pier, wondering if he should call it off, then thinks better of it. “We’ll be fine. Probably.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  SCUM

  Jeremy Shulme is fifty-six years old, with a paunchy build, black hair sticking to his forehead like a sweaty rag, and a Members Only jacket. He slouches across the parking lot of the West Broward cardboard packing plant toward his beat-up Honda Civic, where Hughes and I are waiting. First he sees our shadows in the streetlight, then our faces and badges.

  “Are you Jeremy?” asks Hughes, as if this poor SOB didn’t match to a T the classic image of a child pornographer.

  “Yeah?” he says, not too surprised. As a parolee, he’s used to cops popping up at odd hours to check in on him.

  Even though we’re off the Swamp Killer task force, a friend of Solar’s at the Broward Sheriff’s Office asked if we could do a backgrounder on half a dozen people in exchange for lending us some guys to watch the Pacific Miracle, the boat whose radar dome we’re using as Bandit bait.

  Shulme was arrested eight years ago in a sting operation by BSO when he exchanged child pornography with a detective posing as an online perv. When they raided Shulme’s home—actually his mother’s house—they found hard drives with incriminating images and videos. What popped him to the top of the list of pervs to talk to in the Swamp Killer case, though, were his folders full of violent stuff involving women and children.

  Chances are he’s just a guy with the inability to control his perverted curiosity and not a physical threat, but you never know.

  “Is this about the bodies in the swamp?” he asks.

  The fact that bodies were found, but not how many or in what condition, broke yesterday, but we’ve been tight-lipped abou
t the connections with all the victims. We don’t want the Swamp Killer to skip town without a trace.

  “We’re just checking up on you,” says Hughes. “What have you heard?”

  Shulme gives us a knowing look. “Right. Right. I heard you found a bunch of bodies in a crab cage inside an alligator pond. That right?”

  “We don’t know much about it,” I reply.

  “Right. Right. Crazy this happening after you found that van,” he says, looking directly at me. “The cage yours too?”

  Hughes and I have enough self-control to avoid looking at each other, but we don’t offer up an answer. Shulme seems fascinated by this case. Of course, they did arrest him with a hard drive filled with snuff films.

  “They didn’t release any photos from the scene. Are they going to?” he asks.

  “You into that kind of thing?” asks Hughes.

  “Aren’t you? Isn’t it why you became a cop?”

  “I became a cop so I could arrest assholes like you and put them behind bars so bigger assholes can have their way with them. Isn’t that why you became a pervert? So you could have them do that to you?”

  Shulme rolls his eyes. “My uncle started molesting me before I could talk. You think anything that happened to me behind bars was worse than that?”

  Damn. There’s this thing that’s been happening to me lately when I talk to bad guys: I see two different men in front of me. One is the monster. The other is the victim.

  The victim didn’t make the monster. But it sure did nurture him. Shulme knew right from wrong and kept choosing wrong. But, still, assuming what he says is true, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, given the world he grew up in.