by Andrew Mayne
These kids are his responsibility, but can I really leave their fate in the hands of a hormonal nineteen-year-old making plans to get laid tonight? I ask this as a former teenage lifeguard who made said plans and managed to get pregnant.
The first time I was presented with one of these ethical situations was my freshman year at a fancy private school that I had to leave a year later when the family money dried up. But during that year, when I first started flirting with Run and hanging out with the most popular of the popular kids, I became a kind of friend to a girl named Pauline.
I say kind of friend because it didn’t take me too long to realize her friendship had ulterior motives. Pauline was a dark-haired beauty who looked several years older than the rest of us. Her mother had been some kind of beauty queen in Argentina. Her father was a lawyer from New York. She had this exotic look about her that could have come from a fashion magazine.
I’d talked to her at school a little, and she was a fixture at the different house parties. She seemed to know everybody, even the outcasts. One day between classes, she came up to me and asked if I wanted to get lunch at the mall on Saturday.
Lunch at the mall? That sounded so much more sophisticated than “shopping,” even though it was essentially the same thing.
Being asked to hang out with a girl as popular as she was felt like a form of acceptance. I’d always felt out of place among the other kids at the school. I was popular enough, probably because I was sufficiently pretty and had a sense of humor. Run pulled me into his circle because I could bust his balls and those of his friends. I could compliment one buddy for a great basketball game, then ask his teammate if he’d thought about switching to the theater department instead. A lot of my jokes were put-downs, a family skill, but I could make myself the butt of a joke too. I had no trouble telling my own embarrassing stories, like trying to hold in gas during silent reading. All this made Run laugh hysterically, which was really the point. Watching his sly mouth break out into a broad grin sent shivers through me. Run was well liked . . . no, Run was loved by everyone. I wanted to be as close to that as possible.
The day Pauline, the prettiest of the pretty girls in that orbit, asked me to be her friend, it felt like a graduation of sorts.
As we sat there in the food court, my salad half-eaten in front of me, she showed me a little packet of pink ecstasy pills and asked me if I wanted to make some money.
I was confused at first. Was my new friend bringing me into her confidence? Or was I merely a recruit for her mini drug-dealing empire?
Until that moment I’d had no idea why Pauline was so popular with everyone. Now I understood. She was a drug dealer. Pauline was always close to the center, but not in the center precisely. The way she moved around a party, whispering to people, made sense now. She talked to everyone because everyone was a potential client.
I glanced at the packet in her hand. “I’m okay.”
“Don’t be worried,” she said, looking around. “Nobody cares. It’s not like it’s crack. Everybody does this.”
“I don’t,” I replied nervously.
“I’m not asking if you want to do it, but you can have some if you want. I’m asking if you want to make some money.”
“I’m okay,” I said again, terrified someone would see me in the middle of what looked like a drug deal.
She leaned in closer to me. “Look, I know money is tight. I wanted to do you a favor. You could get some nice clothes. These other kids we go to school with—it’s not fair. They have everything.”
At this point my family wasn’t struggling, but we certainly weren’t financially secure. Some of the kids I went to school with had their own drivers. “I’m good,” I insisted, trying to figure a way out of this.
“Run does it,” she said, trying to manipulate me through my obvious attraction to him.
“I’m okay. I gotta go.” I stood up.
“All right. Just think about it.” She stood too, grabbed me by the shoulders, and kissed me on the cheek.
From that moment forward, she was as cold as ice to me. I barely existed. She didn’t go out of her way to avoid me, but she never so much as acknowledged me.
It took me a while to understand what had happened. Eventually, I realized that she thought of me as the poor kid. For that reason, she assumed I’d be an easy mark. By rejecting her, I was putting her on a level below myself, and she’d apparently considered me extremely low to begin with.
But that’s not where the ethical challenge came into play. Not becoming a dealer was as simple as an ABC After School Special moral dilemma. The real challenge was putting together the pieces of what I saw while leaving the mall and what happened a few weeks later.
I circled around the shops, trying to decide what to do next, since my afternoon with Pauline was over. I was inside Macy’s when I saw her again. She was sitting by an older man on a bench, having a heated discussion. Her mother came over to the bench and sat with them. Pauline argued with her as well. I couldn’t make out the words, just the emotions, which were intense.
When the police came to school and pulled Pauline out of class, it never made the newspapers. But word got around. The story on campus was that she’d met some older boy whose family was into drugs and she’d started selling for him.
She was back in school a week later and behaved like it was all a misunderstanding. Life moved on. Or rather, it moved on around her.
One day I found her crying in a corner of the locker room. I wanted to ignore her and treat her the same way she’d treated me, but I couldn’t. I sat next to her and said nothing.
“I’m sorry for being such a bitch to you,” she said between sobs.
“It’s okay.”
“Everyone here is so fake.” Her arms wrapped around my waist, and her head fell on my shoulder.
“People are stupid.” This was the best explanation my fifteen-year-old brain could come up with.
“You’re real. That’s what I like about you.”
O-kay . . . I hadn’t realized she’d ever noticed anything about me to like. I didn’t know what to say.
Her arms squeezed tighter around me. She wasn’t putting the moves on me. She was clinging to me.
“I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” I told her.
“It’s okay. Ottavio says once it blows over, he and I are going to go somewhere far away.”
“Ottavio?” I asked. Was he a new kid?
Pauline whispered, “My mom’s boyfriend. Don’t tell anyone? Okay? He could get into a lot of trouble.”
He could get into trouble? This girl was facing drug charges, and she’s worrying about the pervert that’s been abusing her?
“Promise you won’t say anything?” she asked.
“Uh, sure.”
She wiped away a tear and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re the best, Sloan. We should hang out more often. You make me laugh.”
Now I was facing an ethical dilemma that none of my mother’s VHS tapes of After School Specials had prepared me for.
Pauline’s mom was cheating on her husband with a drug dealer who was sleeping with Pauline and using her to deal. And the poor girl was willing to take a fall for him.
Walking away from the food court had been easy. What was I supposed to do now?
I knew I couldn’t ask any family or friends, because I didn’t want to risk them telling me the wrong answer—to do nothing.
I spent all night and day trying to figure out who I should tell. My teachers? The police? The news?
Then I remembered someone saying that Pauline was being tried in juvenile drug court. The name of the judge was in the newspaper. I found his address and knocked on his door the next evening.
He was confused at first, thinking I was trying to lie to get a friend out of trouble, but I told him everything, including the food-court attempt to recruit me, the argument afterward, and the truth about Pauline’s situation.
A week later, all charges were dropped. A few
days after that, Pauline and her mother vanished, and an Ottavio Spencer was arrested for running an MDMA ring in South Florida.
The competing rumors around school were that Pauline and her mom had fled to Argentina or that Pauline’s mob-connected lawyer dad had them killed.
I was the only one who knew the truth.
A few weeks after they vanished, I received a text message from an unknown number along with a photo: it was Pauline standing in front of a mirror, flipping me off. Arizona sucks. I know it was you, bitch.
Did I lose sleep? A little. The older I get, less and less. The more important question is, What did I learn? How far should I take things?
If I saw one of the little children wade out into the ocean, I’d run after them. But what if I saw their mother smoking near them? What if I thought they had an abusive home life? How far do I take it? Do I really want to police the world around me? I start to get up.
“Where are you going?” asks Tilda.
“That little girl over there needs more sunscreen. I’m going to tell her mom.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
BARNACLES
Jackie is leading her friends on an offshore snorkeling trip toward a small reef. She turns back from time to time to check on the other two girls, making sure that nobody is getting too far behind. She’s also making slow, measured strokes, careful to not outpace them. Moments like this make me proud.
I stay at the rear, on the lookout for boats and fish, like a mama orca protecting her pod. I’ve got my speed fins on. That way I can catch up to a girl in seconds if a problem arises, although on dives like this the problems are usually lost fins and leaking masks.
Jackie spots a school of fish and dives down like a torpedo to inspect them. One of the girls tries to follow but stops as water rushes into her snorkel. I kick hard, and I’m next to her a moment later. I guide Tabitha to the surface, putting her arm over my shoulder. When we breach, I take her mask off and let her cough out the salt water while I keep an eye on Clare and the blur of my daughter below.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she coughs. “Forgot to not breathe through the snorkel. Where’d you come from?” she asks, looking around.
“Behind you. Are you okay?”
She nods. I hand her mask back to her. She manages to get it back on and goes back to snorkeling.
Jackie pops her head above the surface. “What happened?”
“She tried to follow you.”
“Oops,” she says, embarrassed. “I saw the fish.”
“Just be more careful around the girls. They’re not your cousins.”
“Okay.” And just like that, she does an elegant flip in the water and sidles up to her friends.
I’m still thinking about Pauline from high school and the boundaries of my ethical responsibility. Something’s nagging me. Unfinished business. A question at the back of my mind.
What is it?
Well, I could start with the fact that nothing about the Swamp Killer case sits right with me.
Yes, they have some solid evidence. Yes, Shulme made something of a confession. Yes, but . . . what?
It doesn’t feel right. It feels like . . . we’re not trying hard enough to prove he’s not the Swamp Killer.
Why is that? It would be embarrassing to get the wrong guy, not to mention bad for the poor slob who gets wrongfully convicted. So why are we pushing so hard?
Jackie and her friends point toward a large cobia gliding along the sand. Its prehistoric features give it a menacing look, but Jackie shows no sign of concern. She’s been close to bigger and meaner fish. Her friends hang back behind her.
Okay, the girls are fine, and there appear to be no apex predators in the vicinity. So . . . back to the case. Why aren’t we afraid of embarrassing ourselves? Who would want to be wrong about the Swamp Killer? He’s one of South Florida’s most prolific and organized killers ever. He’s elusive . . .
If Shulme isn’t the Swamp Killer, then catching the real one may be impossible. Shulme probably is Manifold, but that’s not the same thing. And that’s the problem. We’ve convinced ourselves that Manifold is the Swamp Killer. Get Manifold, you get the killer. Only I’m not so sure that math adds up.
Tabitha is starting to slow down and is having trouble keeping up. I swim over to the girls and motion for them to surface.
Jackie gives me a look, wanting to stay out longer, but her brain intercedes and she says nothing, realizing this is about her friends, not her stamina.
We swim back to shore, take off our fins, and stretch out on our towels to dry. I make sure they all reapply their sunscreen so they don’t go home looking like tween lobsters.
I apply my own sunscreen and listen to the girls’ chatter. It bounces between which K-pop star they have a crush on and how much is too much YouTube versus Netflix.
They’re oblivious to my eavesdropping, and Tilda’s snoring under her sun hat, empty Mason jar at her side.
“Should I send a picture to Caden?” asks Clare.
“No,” says Jackie. “He’s a perv. He’ll just send it to his weirdo friends.”
“I can use Pixy. That way he can’t save it,” she replies.
“He’ll just screen grab it. Boys are pervy. They always figure out ways around that.”
Damn right, daughter. Boys aren’t to be trusted.
My stomach does a flip. For a moment, I feel suddenly nauseated. That thing at the back of my mind just stepped forward.
“Do the boys in your school trade photos around?” I ask.
“Oh, not those kinds of photos,” says Jackie. “I mean, not that I know of.”
“The older boys do,” replies Clare.
I’m not terribly surprised by that, or by teen and tween behavior generally; it’s something else that has me alarmed. “Stay here, guys. I’m going to make a call.”
I walk over to a picnic table with a clear view of them, take a seat, and dial my phone.
“Wesley,” says the Broward Sheriff’s Office detective.
Let’s hope this interaction goes better than the last one we had. “It’s McPherson.”
“Ah, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“The evidence for Shulme. How familiar are you with it?”
“Is that a joke? I’m sorting through file boxes right now with the district attorney’s office. Is there a problem?”
“I have a question. The Polaroids Shulme took of the victim . . . how many are there?”
“Three,” he replies. “Can I help you with anything else?”
“Did they track down the film? When the prints were made?”
“The film? There’s no way to tell.”
“What did the lab say? Can’t they tell from a serial number?”
“That would be on the back,” he explains.
I’m confused. “Okay. Why don’t you flip it over?”
He laughs. “That’s not how photocopies work, kid. They only copied one side.”
“Wait. How many actual Polaroids do you have from Shulme?”
“Actual Polaroids? None. He destroyed them all,” Wesley replies.
“Then what was I looking at before?”
“A photocopy.”
“Right. You mean that’s the original? A photocopy of a Polaroid?”
“Yes, McPherson. This conversation is getting boring. Anything else I can help you with? Maybe explain how email works?”
Ass. “So, the physical evidence for Shulme is literally a photocopy of a Polaroid?”
“That and the fact that he knew details nobody else could know. Things we had to go back to the crime scenes to find out.”
“Things only the killer knew.”
“Exactly.”
“Or that the killer told him.”
“Oh, don’t get started with that horseshit. You had Shulme and you didn’t know it. Don’t start trying to cover your ass now.”
“I don’t care about that. I just want—”
“Goodbye
.” He hangs up on me.
Oh jeez. This is worse than I thought.
Shulme isn’t the Swamp Killer. At least that’s what my gut is telling me. He’s still out there.
My eyes fall on Jackie and her friends giggling in the sun, no cares beyond those of a sheltered child. A cool breeze rolls in from the ocean, and I start to shiver.
This is worse than going back to square one. Nobody wants to believe the real Swamp Killer’s still out there. They all want to swim straight ahead, ignoring what’s lurking just out of sight.
The Swamp Killer must be loving the fact that we’re so far off his trail. He must feel invulnerable now. Uncatchable. And ready to kill again.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
BOTTOM FEEDER
Shady Tree Villas is even creepier at night. TVs flicker from inside trailers while the occasional group of men sits on steps or in lawn chairs, cigarettes glowing, waiting for . . . what? Redemption? Some time traveler to burst out of the stars and help them undo the horrible acts that put them on the fringes of society?
Once upon a time, you could outrun your sins by going off to the frontier. There are still some places left like that. I’ve met a few people with criminal pasts in remote ports and fishing towns. But for most, the only choice is to sit in one place, diving deeper into your own psyche, numbing your mind with whatever pop culture or pharmacology has to offer.
I wonder about Uncle Karl. His crimes aren’t nearly as morally reprehensible as those of these men, but what does he look forward to after he’s out of his halfway house and back among society? If I had to bet, I’d say he’ll leave South Florida for a while. I don’t blame him.
The part of me that demands justice and wants the wicked to be punished deeply understands the lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key mentality. But that can’t be the solution for all crimes. I still don’t have an answer for what you do with the truly unredeemable, and I surely won’t find it here.
What I do hope to find lies in Smokey Joe Ray’s trailer and mind.
I contemplated bringing Hughes as backup but decided to keep him away from this until I have something more than a bad feeling. If I make another mistake like I did with Cope and Shulme, Hughes would share the blame.
