by Willow Rose
The words leaving judge Brydon’s mouth resulted in a loud outburst from the spectators in the seats behind Vernon. He couldn’t stop his tears from rolling and turned to look at his mother’s face. She too was crying.
Then followed the words he had been waiting to hear for twenty-eight years.
“You’re a free man, Mr. Johnson.”
Vernon sobbed and looked at his lawyer from the Innocence-Project of Florida. This guy had fought his case since he was an intern. Now, he was a senior partner in the firm. He too shed a few tears and shook Vernon’s hand.
“You did it, Vernon.”
“No. You did it. Thank you. Thank you for believing in me.”
A few hours later, Vernon had gathered his belongings and left the cell that had been his home for the biggest part of his life, since he was only twenty-eight years old. Now he was fifty-six, and one of the few to leave death row alive.
What had gotten him this far? Hope. The undying hope that they would sort it out. He had believed they would. He simply refused to lose confidence that they would. When they had taken him in and asked him all those questions, he knew they had made a mistake and believed they would eventually find out. Even when they had been in the courtroom and the verdict had been stated, he believed it. On the bus ride to the prison, even when they gave him that suit, the one with the rear stripe on it that only inmates on death row wear, even then he had thought: They’ll figure out the truth. They’re gonna straighten it all out. Someone will tell them they got it all wrong. Like they did in the Perry Mason TV shows. Someone would soon yell:
Stop, he didn’t do it!
Even when he walked the long catwalk to his cell with his hands cuffed, he believed there was still hope. It wasn’t until they had closed the door and left him alone that it finally occurred to him.
This could be your last stop. This could be where it will all end. They might kill you here. Kill you for nothing.
But still, he had kept the hope. Even if it decreased as time went by. He had appealed his case many times and, finally, after eight years, they had changed it from death row to life in prison, since the body had never been found, but that hadn’t been enough for Vernon. He wanted to be cleared of all charges. He wanted to be a free man. He knew he deserved to be. He knew he was innocent and he was determined to prove it.
Now it had happened. It had finally happened, he thought to himself as the glass doors opened and he walked outside in front of the TV cameras and photographers and people with microphones asking him how he felt.
“Unbelievable,” he said, “It’s simply unbelievable.” Vernon grabbed his mother and hugged her so tight. Her small body was whimpering and hollering in his arms and he held her, feeling like never letting go again.
“I knew they would realize your innocence sooner or later,” she said through the tears. Microphones were pushed in her face as they started to walk out. Vernon’s arm was solidly planted on her fragile shoulders, tears gushing across his cheeks.
“Do you feel anger?” a reporter asked.
Vernon shook his head. “Right now, I just want to go home.”
All the reporters burst into a laughter, but his mother didn’t. She looked into the camera and pointed her finger at it.
“I do have one thing I want to say,” she said. “Vernon had twenty-eight years taken from him. An entire lifetime. Meanwhile, the real killer is out there somewhere. He got to live his life, while my Vernon was held in here for something that other person did.” She paused for effect. “So, if you’re watching this, better get ready. Your time is up. It’s time to pay your dues.”
Chapter Nine
May 2015
On my way home, I stopped by at Swell Surf shop across the street from my parents’ motel.
“How’s my baby coming along?” I asked as I entered.
The owner smiled. “It’s coming along great,” he said. “I’m done shaping it and have made an appointment for the glassing. All I need is to do the paint job.”
“Ah, I can’t wait to take her into the waves. And you’ll do the rainbow colors as I asked?”
The owner shrugged. “It’s your board.”
“Great,” I said and smiled. I wanted my new board to be colorful. “So, when do you think it’ll be done?”
“Two weeks time.”
“Perfect,” I said on my way out the door. “If it turns out to be a good board, it might not be the last I buy from you.”
The owner smiled. I was glad to be able to help him out a little. I knew his shop was struggling. He had been asking me for months to let him shape a board for me. He surfed with the rest of us at my parents’ break often. I thought it was a good idea to support one of the locals.
The entire family met up at my parents’ motel for dinner, as usual, sitting out on the deck overlooking the beach. Abigail and Austin told us everything about their day at school, while my parents complained that times were slow at the motel. They were always slow at this time of year, I told them.
Shannon seemed pensive while everyone else was caught up in the talk, and I looked at her for a little while without her noticing it. I liked to look at her. It made me so happy inside. I loved that she had put on a little weight and her cheeks were fuller now. It gave her a cute look. We hadn’t told the press the news yet, but it wouldn’t be long before they noticed, and then they were going to be all over it. I was enjoying this moment before hell broke lose again. I just hoped they weren’t going to occupy our building like they did last time. It would all be better once we had our own house and property that they weren’t allowed onto. A big fence surrounding the property would keep their noses out.
I could tell Shannon was worried, and I knew why. I called my colleagues in Nashville almost every day, asking them for news on her case, but so far, no luck. All they needed was to find that damn gun and then it would be all over. But, so far, they had dug out the entire backyard where the body was found and they hadn’t found anything yet.
It was driving me crazy.
Shannon was innocent. She wasn’t even the one who killed the guy; Joe was. But he was gone, and we had to provide them with something to make them believe what she said. The gun, preferably with Robert Hill’s fingerprints all over it, would do just that. It would show them Shannon was telling the truth.
“So, Angela, how was your day today?” I asked, to try and involve her a little in the conversation. My kids always spoke so loudly and dominated the entire conversation so that no one ever heard what Angela had to say. I wanted her to feel at home. This was, after all, her new family.
“Good,” she said and blushed a little.
“We saw her at recess,” Abigail said.
“Yeah, we played the shark-game,” Austin said.
“Did you, now? Well, that sounds like fun,” I said, as my eyes met Shannon’s. She forced a smile through her worry.
“Did anything exciting happen at your job today, Dad?” Austin asked. He always hoped I had caught some bad guys or maybe been in a car chase. For some reason, he thought that was all I did.
“Not really. Beth came back,” I said.
“That’s good,” my mom said. “She is a fighter, that girl. I tell you. Just like her mom was.”
My mother was born and raised in Cocoa Beach and knew about everybody around there.
“She sure is,” I said and ate more of my fish taco. A set of waves was rolling in on the beach now, and I couldn’t wait to go out after dinner for a little sunset surfing. If I was lucky, I could get a good hour in. The kids were planning on playing volleyball on the beach with my parents. Shannon said she wanted to work on her new song.
They were all good plans for a nice Monday night, but as it often is with plans, they tend to change. And so they did this evening when my phone rang in my pocket. I was inclined to not pick it up, but when I saw whom it was, I knew there was no way I could ignore it. It was Sheriff Ron.
“Ryder. Whatever you’re up to, stop it. You’r
e needed down in Sebastian. Pick up Beth on your way.”
Chapter Ten
May 2015
The sun had almost set when we arrived at Sebastian Inlet, thirty-four miles south of Cocoa Beach. Beth seemed tired and I wondered if she had come back to work too early after the procedure. I also wondered if she was all right or if she was afraid. Last time she was called out, she had almost lost her life. I knew she had to be feeling something, but I also knew she would never admit to it. That was just the way she was.
“So, what do we have?” I asked, when we got out and Ron greeted us at the scene. We had been called out to a construction site where they were demolishing an old condominium building to build a new and bigger one.
“Construction workers stumbled over it around four this afternoon. They weren’t sure what it was, so they called for their supervisor. He called us right away.”
The scene was already packed with police, medical examiners, and technicians combing through the area in their blue suits. Ron led Beth and me to an area where something had been spread on a white sheet. I knew right away what it was. I said hello to Yamilla Díez from the ME’s office.
“The workers found this small pile of bones,” she said. “Our guys found the skull.”
I kneeled next to it and looked at it thoroughly. “Looks old,” I said.
“It is,” Yamilla said. “There is nothing left except the bone. No clothing, no hair, no nails, nothing.
“Well, the building was built in nineteen ninety-three,” Ron said.
“It could have been buried here before that,” I said.
Ron nodded and looked around. One of the technicians brought in more bones and put them on the sheet. Yamilla went over to them immediately and began trying to put together the skeleton. It was starting to look like a person.
“It doesn’t look like it was an adult,” I said, when looking at the femur.
Yamilla shook her head. “No.”
“A child?” Ron said.
I shook my head. “No. It’s too long to be a child. I’m guessing a teenager.” I looked at Yamilla, who nodded again.
“That’s more likely. But a young one. Not fully grown, so no older than fourteen, I’m guessing. We’ll know more once I get him to the lab.”
“It’s a he?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Yamilla said. “This is, of course, only based on my assumptions. Later examination will determine if I am correct. But a common way in which you might differentiate between male and female is quite simply bone size. This, of course, is not always accurate, but for the most part male bones are larger in size than female bones and are that way because of the addition muscle that may built up on the male body through adolescence and into adulthood. The pelvic area is another good way of differentiating between the sexes. A female will have a larger sub-pubic angle than that of a man, and this is obviously indicative of child bearing requirements in the female that are not required in the male of the species. This difference is noticeable across all species in nature, where birth is from the womb. The male’s sub-pubic area is less than ninety degrees whilst the female’s is more. The area around the pelvic inlet—in the middle of the pelvic bone—is larger in females than in men, again with relevance to child bearing.”
I stared at the human remains that were starting to shape into a real person in front of me. A person who once had a life, a mom and a dad, a school, and friends. It was all just about to begin when it had somehow ended so abruptly. As I looked at the bones on the sheet, something struck me as off.
“What’s wrong with the back?” I asked.
Yamilla looked at me. “I’ve been wondering about that too,” she said. “I keep thinking I might have put it together wrong or that some parts are missing.”
“What is it?” Beth asked.
“The spine,” I said. “It’s curved. Like he suffered from spinal stenosis, something you usually see in older people.”
Chapter Eleven
May 2015
It felt strange being on the outside. It was nothing like Vernon had expected it to be. It was funny, he thought to himself while sitting on the couch in his mother’s small condo in Rockledge; it was funny how many times he had imagined how life would be on the other side, what things would look like, what life would be like, and now that he was out, he had to realize it was nothing like anything he had pictured.
The day after he was released, they had driven back to their old neighborhood, back to where they used to live, and everything was so changed. It used to be old worn-out houses, and some of them you could barely call shacks. Now, it was all brand-new cookie-cutter houses with two car-garages and pools. Even the house Vernon used to live in with his mother had been torn down and another had been built there in its place. Children were playing in the street and all the front yards looked well maintained.
It was nothing like the neighborhood he had grown up in. Nothing.
They had cruised down to the beach at Vernon’s request, and they had walked with bare feet in the sand like he had dreamt of so many times while in prison. He had felt the water on his feet and shins and closed his eyes and breathed in the fresh ocean air. The beach looked a lot like it used to, except for the many condominiums that had been built since Vernon was last there. The old motel was still there, though.
“So, what are you going to do today?” his mother asked on her way out. She worked at the Publix, packing grocery bags.
Vernon smoked his cigarette and shrugged. In front of him was a big flat-screen TV that he had bought for his mother the day before. TV he knew from the inside. It was familiar to him. It felt like home.
“I think I’m just going to sit here for a little while,” he said.
His mother nodded and sighed, then walked to the front door and left. He knew she didn’t want him to just sit there and stare at the TV all day, but right now, it was all he knew how to do. He liked to look out the window at the blue sky, but walking around out there was a little intimidating. It was like it was too overwhelming for him. Like the fact that that his space was no longer limited frightened him somehow. It made him feel unsafe and insecure. Inside in the living room in front of the TV with a cigarette in his hand, he felt safe. He felt at home. Out there in the world, there was too much noise, too much turmoil. When he went for a coffee at Starbucks one of the first days out, he had seen nothing but people staring at their phones or computers. Nobody talked anymore. It was like anything you needed to say to someone could be contained in a text message. Vernon didn’t like it. He liked looking into people’s eyes. He didn’t like the coffee either. It was nothing like the coffee he was used to. He had bought himself a burger he really liked, though. That was something he had missed on the inside. A really good burger.
They had paid him a million dollars in replacement for wrongly incarcerating him. That meant Vernon didn’t have to work for the rest of his life. Neither did his mom, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
“Any honest man or woman should work if they can,” she said.
Vernon had a feeling she enjoyed her job too much to let it go. That was the only explanation he could think of for her rejecting his proposal to support her for the rest of her life. He could easily do that with this kind of money. The condo she lived in was cheap, and they didn’t have many expenses. But living a life without having anywhere to go every morning after working your entire life wasn’t his mother’s idea of a great life.
“And do what all day, do you propose? Stay here with you and watch TV? No, thank you.”
She liked that she was needed. She liked having a purpose, something to do. He respected that. Now, Vernon had bought the TV he had always wanted, he had eaten the burger, and had put his feet in the ocean. Now, what was he supposed to do with himself? He had no idea.
Except there was one thing he had dreamt about doing for every day of the twenty-eight years in prison. There was one person he had dreamt of seeing again.
Chapter Twelve
Cuba 1969
Ten years after his brother ran away, Hector Suarez still hadn’t seen Raul again. The family mourned the loss of one of their sons, and especially Hector’s mom took it hard. Two years passed without a word from him until one day when they heard the rumor that he had been moved to another village after having been hidden in the attic while the police searched for him and his face was on matchboxes all over the country.
A year later, Hector heard his brother had been moved to yet another village, and later smuggled out of the country and managed to make it into the U.S. Where he was today was uncertain, but Hector had a feeling he was somewhere safe. And soon after he heard about his brother making it to the U.S., Hector started dreaming about following in his footsteps. He too wanted to get away and provide a better life for his family.
Veronica and he married when they turned eighteen, and soon after she was pregnant with their daughter, Isabella. Isabella was the love of Hector’s life, especially after Veronica died. She became sick only a year after the birth of their daughter and never recovered. Now, Hector was alone with his daughter and dreaming of a better life for her. The government had taken his father’s farm and their family was poor now. Two more of Hector’s older brothers soon did what Raul had done and escaped to the U.S., where they believed a better future awaited them. They all dreamt of the land with streets of gold.
Hector was determined to follow them. Only, he had a daughter, and he was scared of what would happen to her there. He had no idea what life would be like for a little girl, and mostly he was afraid of the trip there. Would it be safe to bring her along? He wasn’t sure.
In 1965, Hector decided he was ready to make his own journey to the United States. He forged a birth certificate, since he was only twenty-two years old, and men between the age of fifteen and twenty-five weren’t allowed to leave the country. To earn his visa, he was forced by the government to work in the sugar cane fields. There he was, working along with lawyers and doctors, all of them trying to earn their visa to go to the Promised Land. While working the fields, Hector’s hatred towards the government and the dreams of a better future increased rapidly. When he lay in his tent at night in the camps where they slept, he would remind himself over and over again that it would come one day, soon. The dream wasn’t far away. While working in the fields, Hector only saw his daughter once a month.
