Instead of sounding relieved, maybe even giddy over Marci's safety and my report on what we'd gotten from the Glades site, Richards sounded wary.
"So where are you now?" I said, slowing as I moved into a more populated section of Broward County. I didn't need to get stopped now.
"I'm at Kim's. I pulled a stool back into the hallway and I'm watching her work. She keeps answering the phone and looking out the windows," Richards said. "I'm not letting her out of my sight and if Morrison comes in here I'm going to arrest his ass myself."
"Look, Sherry," I said. "If that happens, call for backup first, OK?"
"Right," she said, and the phone clicked off. It was one in the morning when I got to the bar. My jeans were wet up to the middle of my thighs from the swamp. My shirt was smeared with muck and I thought I could still smell the stench of death in the material. I parked in a spot on the back side of the shopping center and walked through the pool-room entrance. Richards was still sitting in the hallway that linked the two rooms, her back up against the wall. Another patron was making his way to the men's room and said to her: "Hey, honey. You still here? I told you I'd be glad to give you a ride home."
"My boyfriend will be here any minute," she answered.
"That's what you said an hour ago, sweetheart."
"I was being polite," she said and then noticed me walk in. "And I still am."
The guy shrugged and slid by me.
"What's up?" I said, looking beyond Richards to see Marci behind the back bar, working at the register, closing out the paper tabs that were piled there.
Even here in the shadows I could see the gray in her eyes. She'd let this whole mess boil too long in her head.
"I woke up the damn prosecutor and he said the evidence is circumstantial," she said, the bitterness snapping off the words. "He said we'll have to take it to a grand jury if we want to go after a cop."
I put my back to the wall opposite her and leaned into it. I was tired.
"He said if forensics comes up with a blood match out there in the morning, maybe. If we run a photo spread past some other women who pick him out as trying to take them out there, maybe. The fact that he might have driven his squad car out there to look at the stars isn't criminal. Even if you're right and those are my girls out there, it's still circumstantial. No judge will order an arrest warrant."
Everything she said, I'd heard before and she had probably heard every time she'd gone to the same prosecutor's office for the last several months on her disappearing girls. She was looking at the floor, trying to hide her tears. I was looking down, trying to think of something to say.
"He raped me."
We both looked up at Marci. She'd come out from behind the bar and was standing in the hallway opening. Her arms were folded across her chest. Her chin was up and she did not try to wipe the tears from her cheek.
"He raped me out there in the Everglades, where he goes. I went to the sexual assault treatment center today. That's where I was. I thought they would just go and arrest him but they didn't."
Richards and I looked at each other but let her continue.
"They taped an interview and made me sign a sworn statement and when I asked them what they were going to do they said they had to send everything to some internal office because it was a cop and that they'd get back to me. I thought that meant a couple of hours so I stayed away from my place all day and they never called but he did," she said and a tremble was setting up in her voice and a paleness I had seen before when I had first told her of Morrison's motives.
"So I came to work because I was afraid and he's still calling and he's still out there and he's going to be out there when I get off and…"
This time when she stumbled, Richards jumped forward and caught her. She reached under the girl's elbows to support her and this time Marci did not wave off the help and instead leaned into Richards and sobbed, and then they wrapped their arms around each other and Sherry looked up at me and her eyes were filled with tears. "We're going to arrest his ass now, right now," Richards barked into the cell phone. "We've got a witness to an attack perpetrated by him, the same witness that your office has had all goddamn day and sat on your hands with for the sake of goddamn protocol. We also have evidence of at least one other homicide at the same site where this witness was attacked and we're picking him up. You can meet us out there if you're fast but we're not waiting."
We were in my truck, Richards in the passenger seat, Marci in between us. When Richards had called dispatch, they told her Morrison was helping to set up a perimeter on the east side of the city park. Another officer was in foot pursuit of an aggravated battery suspect. She had pulled out her police radio and switched channels to the Fort Lauderdale P.D. frequency and we were following their call out directions.
Richards had asked if the battery was of a woman and the dispatcher had answered, "No, it's a, uh, Ms. O'Kelly, out in front of her home in Victoria Park. She reported that someone threatened her with a baseball bat."
The name set a lump in my chest and I asked Sherry to turn the radio up.
"Description of the suspect, four-eighteen?" dispatch asked.
"White male…heavy, six-foot…wearing, wearing gray cutoff sweatshirt…uh…dark pants…"
"Four-eighteen? Four-eighteen, what's your location?" the dispatcher said, worry now sneaking into her voice.
I turned off from Sunrise Boulevard into the main entrance of the park and could see other spinning cop-car lights coming in from two other directions.
"Four-eighteen. Suspect in custody," the winded cop on the radio said.
"Ten-four, four-eighteen. Location?" said the dispatcher.
"On the soccer field, north end of the park."
We followed the patrol cars and came to a stop in the parking lot of the soccer field. Richards held her door handle and we both scanned the squad cars, looking for Morrison's number or someone in uniform that looked like him. When we couldn't spot him, we got out.
"Stay inside for right now, OK, Marci? We need you to point him out, give us a positive identification. Just wait here," Richards said and reached out and touched the girl on the leg before closing the door.
We walked over to the line of cars together, looking in both directions, closely. The officers had aimed their headlights out onto the field and then gotten out. There were six of them.
The rain had stopped and the grass out in front of us was glistening in the low trajectory of the headlights and then someone yelled, "There they are."
Out on the field two figures were walking and appeared to be half dragging a third.
We stood and looked out along with the rest of the arriving cops and as the three came closer I recognized two of them.
They were twenty yards away when Morrison stopped, jerking the whole procession to a halt. He was staring at me with my stained shirt and jeans soaked to the thigh, and then at Richards and then farther to her left. Marci had walked up and stood beside her.
At first his face looked confused and then tightened like a fist into anger. He dropped the man I knew as David Hix and pointed his finger at Richards.
"What's that bitch doing here?" he yelled, to no one in particular.
The officers around us seemed to stop moving.
"Yo, Kyle," someone next to us started but Morrison stopped him.
"No," he yelled. "I want to know why these fucking people are here!"
A few of the cops looked at us, at least one recognized Richards.
"Hey chill, Kyle. It's command, man."
Richards turned and said something I could not hear to Marci. The girl nodded yes and Richards stepped forward.