by Andrew Mayne
We caught him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
ANCHOR
We’re gathered back in the BSO auditorium only three days after the manhunt was put together. This time there’s only about a third of us here, forcing me to sit closer to the front so I don’t stand out.
Denton and his task force are chatting, grins on their faces, relaxed postures. Clearly, they feel good about this.
“Think there’ll be a cake too?” asks Hughes, mocking their excitement. “They didn’t have to smell the bodies we pulled out of the swamp.”
“It’s easy to get lost in the moment,” I say, defending them for some reason.
“It’s easy to forget that there were real victims. Real people. They look like they just won the office football pool.”
Man, Hughes takes this stuff harder than I realized. Underneath that cool-as-ice exterior beats a tender heart. The real Hughes is the dad I saw on my boat cradling his baby. The tough, analytical one is the machine he built to protect the good in the world from the bad.
George breaks away from a group of other silver-haired men and women and takes a seat next to me. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
So far, we’ve had no details, only the notion that the snare apparently worked. Someone responded to the articles and unwittingly revealed where he was getting his paper—apparently the only person who even bothered to buy a paper all day in whatever zone he was picked up in.
“They’re being tight-lipped. We’ve also been asked to send them all our interviews,” says George.
“We already sent them,” I reply.
“We’re being asked again. Might be a clerical thing.”
“Anything else?”
“We’ll find out.” George nods to the podium, where Denton is gathering his notes.
“Good evening. We wanted to provide you a briefing before this hits the press. We also need more help in tying up loose ends. But to get right to the point, we think we may have caught the Swamp Killer. Right now, he’s in holding downstairs. He’s waived his right to an attorney but hasn’t said anything. However, we were able to get a search warrant for his residence and found evidence that connects him to several of the murders. We’re still filling in the details, so I must ask that you coordinate all press inquiries through us. We don’t want to jeopardize our case through careless commentary. Most important, I want to thank all of you for your hard work. It’s amazing what teamwork can do. Questions?”
Denton is barraged by requests for more details, but he waves them all off. “We’ll tell you when we can.”
“This feels like a press conference, not a briefing with peers,” I whisper.
“No kidding,” says George.
After Denton finishes, one of the agents he works with comes over to George and us. “Agent Denton would like to speak with you in the conference room.”
“What about?” asks George.
The agent shrugs. “He didn’t say.”
We follow him out of the auditorium and over to a small conference room and take a seat. Merton, the computer guy, is there along with Chandler Balstrada, a detective with BSO, who’s going through piles of paperwork. Merton acknowledges us with a nod, then returns to his computer.
A minute later, Denton enters and sits at the head of the table. “What a couple of days. Chandler, you have that file?”
The detective slides a folder over to him. Denton picks up a sheet and reads through some text, then says, “This job can be hard. The details are the killers.”
“I thought the killers were the killers,” I reply.
Hughes smirks, but George’s face remains its usual granite. He’s reading something in the room that I can’t. Now I’m worried.
“McPherson. I think you’re going to make a good cop. You, too, Hughes.” Denton nods to George. “The key is your boss here. Or rather, what he has and you don’t. Experience. All the seminars and textbooks in the world can’t prepare you for the real world. You have to go out there and live it.”
Remind me to ask him for the YouTube link to his TED talk, I tell myself, dying over the fact I can’t share my joke with Hughes.
“Who did you catch?” asks George, getting to the point.
Merton speaks up. “He fit our profile to a T. I mean, almost textbook.”
“More important,” says Denton, “is the evidence we found at his home.” His phone buzzes. Denton reads the message. “He just gave us some more unknown details. No confession, but he’s revealing things.”
“That’s great,” I say. “And you really can tie him to everything?”
“Yes. This doesn’t leave this room, okay?” He reaches into another folder, plucks out a photocopy of something, and slides it over to us. “We found this in a shed belonging to a neighbor—an elderly woman he mowed the lawn for.”
The photocopy is of a Polaroid of a naked young woman with her hands tied over her head to a doorknob. She’s unconscious or dead. A gloved hand is touching her face, with the thumb in her mouth. Underneath the image someone wrote, “What the eyes do not see, lips reveal.”
“Bad poetry too? Wait, is this Olivia de Bauch?” I say, recognizing the face.
“Yes. She went missing in 2002. We found a partial photo of another victim we think is Karen Rose.”
“He just named another victim,” says Merton. “One we never released.”
I can’t take my eyes off Olivia, but this sounds good. Really, really good. I feel the right kind of butterflies in my stomach.
I slide the photo to George. “We got him?”
“This started with you, McPherson,” Denton offers magnanimously. “All of you. Your perseverance is amazing.”
“Thank you—” I start to say, but he continues.
“Which is why we’re going to throw this away.” Denton picks up a folder. “I suggest you do the same with any records you have.”
“I’m sorry?” I reply. “What?”
“Your interview with the suspect. It’s for the best if there’s no record. It doesn’t reflect well on you, and it won’t help our investigation if we look bumbling.”
“Bumbling?” I blurt out. “Help me out. What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Swamp Killer. You spoke to him.”
My pulse pounds in my head. “Cope? You mean that motherfu—SOB was the killer all along? And you raked me over the coals?” My fingernails bite into my palms. George puts a firm hand on my forearm to calm me, with questionable results.
Denton is shaking his head. Why is he shaking his head?
He raises his voice. “It wasn’t Cope.” He throws a folder across to me.
I flip it open and recognize the face after a moment’s hesitation, then slide it over to Hughes.
It’s Jeremy Shulme.
“Him? The sad-sack pervert at the box plant?”
“Yes,” says Denton. “He’s lived in South Florida since he was a teenager. In fact, when he was fifteen, he molested a neighbor, but the records were sealed. The photos, the information he just gave us. You pray for a case this open-and-shut.”
“He didn’t seem like the type,” says Hughes.
“I wish we could tell just by talking to people. But we can’t. I don’t think I would have known had I only spoken to him. But the problem is, you didn’t even get to the rest of the questions on the questionnaire. To be honest, it was sloppy work.”
I’d argue with him, but he’s not wrong. I measured Shulme up and decided he couldn’t be the man I’d been imagining. I let my own biases guide me. To begin with, he doesn’t look like the guy in the photo at the concert . . . but that was just one unreliable witness claiming that was Sleazy Steve. There’s also the chance that the Swamp Killer and Sleazy Steve are two different people after all, and I messed up somewhere.
I was convinced of Cope’s guilty nature, yet his alibi checks out. He was just an asshole. I didn’t want to believe it, but I can’t refute t
he fact that he wasn’t there on the night of the couple’s murder.
“Could there be others involved?” asks Hughes.
It’s a good question. He doesn’t want to let it go either. He was misled by Shulme too.
“We’ve only found one set of consistent footprints across the crime scenes—which we haven’t been able to match to anyone conclusively. The size is close to Shulme’s.” Denton points to his folder. “The part about his uncle molesting him? Never happened. Living with his mother? She died ten years ago. He wanted you to think he was pathetic. He wanted you to think he was a loser who couldn’t have done all this. He didn’t just play you—he played us all.”
Shulme, you lying piece of crap.
Denton picks up the copy of our interview and holds it over a wastebasket. “We don’t have to mention this ever again.” He looks to George. “Fair enough?”
“It’s your call.”
Denton drops the folder into the garbage. “Now that we’ve done that,” he says, “we need to fill in all the blanks and make sure it sticks. Can I have your help on this? I want to make sure he doesn’t get away a third time on some technicality.”
“We’re in, one hundred percent,” I say. “Let’s nail the prick.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
PIRATE CODE
Danielle Ross, an attorney from the State of Florida working on the Swamp Killer case, is assessing me as she sits across the table. Shawn Baym, an FBI agent and liaison with local law enforcement agencies, and Broward detective Eddie Cantata watch me as well.
They’re preparing me for an interview with the Sun Herald, going over what I can and cannot say to the press. Although I’ll have these minders in the room, and the editor of the Sun Herald has promised a friendly interview, they want to make sure I don’t blurt out anything that could blow the case.
It’s still early in the investigation, but part of the agreement with the Sun Herald was that they’d get exclusive coverage. To the chagrin of Denton and others, I was the first interview they wanted.
“How would you describe your involvement in the Swamp Killer case?” asks Assistant State Attorney Ross.
“It started with the discovery of the bodies of the kids in Pond 65,” I reply.
Baym shakes his head. “No. Say it started with the discovery of Alyssa Rennie’s body near the Everglades.”
“Excuse me?”
“We need to simplify the narrative,” says Ross. “Drawing the dots from too many places complicates things. Just explain how that body led you and Hughes to look into suspicious activities in the Everglades.”
“That’s not what happened,” I reply.
“It’s a confusing case,” Ross explains. “We need to focus the narrative.”
“Focus the narrative? Is this a TV show?”
“In the mind of the public, yes. What you have to consider is how many of our potential jurors will have read coverage. We don’t want to confuse them.”
“Aren’t we, like, screening jurors? We still do that.”
“People lie to get on juries for cases like this,” says Ross. “Especially now. It’s like reality television. We need you to stick to the basic points.”
“But the van is one of them. It ties them all together,” I reply.
“No. The cages full of bones in the alligator swamp are what unites them all.”
“Are we even going to charge him with their murders?” I ask.
“We’re handling it on a case-by-case basis. We don’t want to go to trial unless we can prove it. His style changed over the years, and he’s only offered up evidence about a select number of victims.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“He was playing games with us, giving us details from selected cases. His lawyer told him to shut up.”
“Okay. So, what do I say?”
“Talk about diving for the bodies in the Everglades,” says Baym. “That’s a great detail.”
“I didn’t dive for them. Kell dragged them out with alligator hooks.”
“Kell . . . what department is he with?” asks Cantata.
“He’s a civilian. He was our guide.”
Ross shakes her head. “Just say, ‘We pulled the cages out.’ Don’t get into specifics.”
“We?”
“Yes. It’s better if Kell doesn’t get called to the witness stand. We don’t want to run the risk of a defense attorney tripping him up.”
“Like how?”
She shrugs. “Maybe making him seem like the killer.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen it happen. Jurors think it’s an Agatha Christie novel. Every person is a character in the story, and any of them could be the bad guy. Even you.”
“Oh brother.”
“On that topic. Let’s also avoid any mention of your uncle,” says Ross.
“What? I mean, what if the reporter asks?”
“I’ll talk to them,” says Cantata.
I feel like I’m running for political office. Nobody has told me to lie, but this “narrative shaping” seems a lot like manipulation. Does this always happen with cases like this? What don’t I know about what goes on behind the scenes?
Based on the press staging at crime scenes and the sheer number of off-the-record comments I’ve seen other investigators make and reporters respect, it all feels like a movie set where there’s the reality of what’s going on and the agreed-upon story that’s decided by a tug-of-war between the media and the authorities.
“I’m not sure I want to do this interview,” I say.
“It would look bad if you don’t,” says Ross. “With the rumors of infighting and the alleged story that you spoke to Shulme and let him go, we can’t hide.”
“I did speak to Shulme. I didn’t let him go because I didn’t have him.”
“That’s not how people will see it. You didn’t take him in for questioning. You didn’t request a search warrant. It’ll look bad,” Ross insists.
“I had no cause. He was one of thousands of weirdos that were interviewed.”
“Exactly. Don’t comment on him or any other specific person. The point of those interviews was to find the Swamp Killer. You didn’t. That looks bad,” says Cantata, “even if it’s not your fault. Don’t address what we don’t need to.”
“Do you want Shulme to have his attorney get you on the stand and ask you point-blank if you thought he did it at the time?” asks Ross. “If you say yes, he’ll ask what you did, which is nothing. If you say no, he’ll use that to discredit the investigation and you personally. Do you understand the situation this puts us in?”
“He can still ask, regardless of what I say to the reporter,” I reply.
“It diminishes the likelihood of that. His attorney will go by what evidence we present and what he sees in the paper. If there’s no mention of you talking to him, then chances are it won’t come up.”
“And if it does?” I ask.
“Let’s not worry about that now. If this goes to trial, we’ll have plenty of conversations about testimony beforehand.”
“You mean I have to go through this again?”
“This?” says Ross. “This is nothing.”
“I worked with a speech coach to help me on the stand,” says Baym. “I’ll give you her name. She also teaches improv. Um, not the comedy type, just how not to seem flustered—like you seem right now.”
“Flustered looks like guilt,” adds Ross.
“But I’m not on trial!”
“In a way, we all are, once we step into the courtroom,” Baym says.
What kind of madness is this?
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
SHORELINE
Jackie and her two friends run along the crashing waves, playing in the surf. She’s already a head taller than they are, with no sign of stopping. Fortunately, she moves with grace and isn’t tripping over her feet, like I did when I was her age. My problem wasn’t being tall—I wasn’t—it was that I hated shoes, which I considered pr
isons for my feet.
“Want to try?” Tilda, mother of Stacey, hands me a Mason jar from the cooler filled with a fruity liquid and ice.
I hold up my water bottle. “I’ll stick to this for now.”
“Narc,” she jokes before returning to her book.
I managed to make my way through the newspaper interview without divulging too much or getting cornered, which is to say that I handled it robotically and made for a boring interview—which George told me afterward is something every cop should aspire to.
Jackie’s beach day with her friends was planned ages ago. Even though it’s a Saturday and the loose ends on the Swamp Killer case are being tied up, I feel a little guilty for being here. I’m grateful to spend time with my daughter. I only wish I had more frolic in me than angst.
I know I’d feel worse if we hadn’t caught the suspects in the New River thefts, but that’s small consolation given the enormity of guilt I felt for letting George down.
He’s not your damned father.
“Who?” asks Tilda.
I try to cover, not realizing I said that out loud. “Oh, uh. My father . . . I see a lot of him in Jackie. The good parts. The kind heart.”
“Ah. I thought you were talking about her father,” says Tilda, trying to pry where there’s not much to pry into. “Uh, how is that?”
“Good. Great. Run’s a wonderful dad.”
“That’s great,” says Tilda.
I’ve never had a problem with small talk. I’m just more direct. Tilda is trying to dance around the details, curious about our relationship. Which makes sense.
I keep my eyes on Jackie and her friends, also watching the two smaller children playing in a tide pool while their mom sleeps under an umbrella. Farther out, three teenagers are splashing around on an inflatable pool toy, maybe a little too roughly for the ocean, but nowhere near as brutally as my brothers and I played together.
Will all those kids be okay? Probably. I’ve wrestled with this my whole life—how far should we go in order to do the right thing?
Here I am, subconsciously counting all the kids on the beach and deciding which ones I need to keep a watch out for . . . That’s the job of the lifeguard sitting two hundred feet away, but I’ve watched him pull out his phone five times in the last ten minutes.
