Harry returned to headquarters and went immediately to the CSI lab. He found Sergeant Marty LeBaron in his office, and dropped into a chair facing his desk.
“So…” Harry began.
LeBaron grinned at him. “Believe it or not, Harry, I was going to call you.”
“No need. I’m here.”
“I was trying for sarcasm,” LeBaron said.
“Yeah, I know. Sarcasm accepted. So what have you got?”
“On the cross?”
“Especially the cross.”
“The engraving is barely readable, but we were able to bring it up a bit with an acid bath. It’s a line from the Lord’s Prayer. It says: And deliver us from evil… ”
“For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, ” Harry finished.
“Harry, I didn’t know you were religious.”
“I’m not.” Harry stared at him across the desk. “Anything else?”
“Just confirmation of what we already knew. Tire tracks were all standard over-the-counter all-season tires. One set of Firestone; couple of sets of Bridgestone just like the ones we use on our police vehicles. Nothing that was special order, nothing that’s going to help us identify a particular car, just common treads. In Tarpon Springs that software salesman parked his car off the road and carried the blanket and booze onto the beach. But the killer drove around the gate and in to where they were-like he knew he was going to need the car to load up the body.”
“Or he parked on the road, followed them in, killed them, and then drove in to pick up Darlene’s body,” Harry said.
“Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, one thing more. The killer, we think, wears a size eleven shoe.”
“Just like I do,” Harry said. “And half the people who were at the crime scene,” he added as an afterthought.
LeBaron lifted one foot and placed it on the edge of his desk. “Join the club,” he said.
At seven o’clock the team was gathered in the conference room. Harry knew that cops were quick to feel slighted if they thought their work was being pushed aside for someone else’s. So to keep everyone happy he advised the group that he’d be taking reports by order of seniority. That put Nick Benevuto first up. He and his partner, John Weathers, had checked out the alibis of Darlene’s ex-husband, Jordan Beckett, and her high school boyfriend, Billy Smithers.
“The ex was out on his sailboat with his new girlfriend,” Benevuto began. “The marina where he keeps the boat said he filled it up with diesel in the late afternoon on the day of the murder, and told the guy who filled it that he was heading south in the gulf for a few days. The girlfriend confirms that she was with him every minute right up to the time he got the call that Darlene was dead. His office also confirms that he took the time off from work.” He gave Harry a shrug. “Of course, there’s no way of being certain he didn’t have a car stashed somewhere along the route, where he could get back, do his ex-wife, and return to the boat. So I checked for any traffic citations or parking tickets he might have gotten between here and Venice, along with the area north of the marina in case he lied about where he took the boat. I also checked car rentals for him and his girlfriend. Nada. If it went down that way the girlfriend would have to be in on it, and she honestly doesn’t seem the type. She comes across as pretty much of a straight arrow.”
“What did you find out about her?” Harry asked.
“She’s an emergency room nurse at Tampa General. They’ve got nothing but good things to say about her-dedicated, caring, all the usual bullshit. I thought I was listening to a goddamn commercial.”
“Did you have time to check his credit cards to see if he made any gasoline purchases on land at the same time he was supposed to be on the boat?”
“Not yet, but I planned to do that in the morning.”
Benevuto said it a bit sheepishly and Harry knew he had caught him out. “Okay, let’s leave Jordan Beckett for now. What about the old boyfriend, Billy Smithers?”
“Same story,” John Weathers chimed in. “He’s got three buddies who say he was at a Rays game at Tropicana Field the night of the murder. All of them said they stayed to the end then went to a bar for a few beers before heading home. It was at least one a.m. before they left St. Petersburg, so that puts him about thirty miles from the crime scene until well after Darlene was iced. Oh, and Smithers also has his ticket stub from the game. It was still in his wallet.”
“Why would he keep the ticket stub?” Harry asked.
“These guys buy reserved seats near the Rays’ dugout. The attendants check tickets every time you go out and try to come back in. So he just stuck the stub in his wallet. It was still there.”
“Okay, we’ll cross Mr. Smithers off the list for now. When you get a chance check out the bar they were at. Take a driver’s license picture with you and see if the bartender can confirm their story.” Harry turned to the Tarpon Springs detectives, the two D’s, Bob Davis and Jerry Deaver. “What did you guys come up with at the murder sight?”
Davis and Deaver looked like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. They were the same height, about five-ten; both had the same blocky builds, with thick necks and square faces, and each had out-of-date crew cuts. If they had worn fedoras they would have fit into a 1940s detective flick, Harry thought.
Davis took the lead: “Our canvass of the neighbors around the park pretty much drew a blank. One guy,” he paused to consult his notebook and rattle off a name and address, “he was out walking his pooch a little before midnight and he remembers two cars being parked near the entrance to the park. He didn’t pay a lot of attention to them because kids park there sometimes and walk into the park to fool around. The work crews claim they pick up a lotta used condoms around the picnic areas, especially on weekends.”
“At least your local kids are practicing safe sex,” Vicky offered.
“Yeah, there’s that,” Davis said. “But it doesn’t make me want to eat my lunch on one of those picnic tables.”
“Did this neighbor remember the make and model of either of the cars?” Harry asked.
“No. He’s so used to seeing cars there, he didn’t pay much attention. He just noticed they were there. He did remember that both of them looked pretty new for kid’s cars. But other than our dog walker nobody saw anything or heard anything unusual. It’s a pretty quiet neighborhood. On work nights most people are in bed by the time our murder went down. One thing that’s curious is that a car did drive around the gate. CSI has casts of the tires, but there doesn’t seem to be anything special about them. And we can’t be certain it happened around the time of the murder. Could have been earlier, or later. All we know for certain is that they’re Bridgestone tires. Same tread as the car that drove into Brooker Creek.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “I already got a report from Marty LeBaron on that. I think we can lean toward the idea that this was the killer’s car. That he drove it in to pick up Darlene’s body. So I’d like you to stay on it. If the cars are new they probably have factory tires on them. So check and see what makes and models came out of the factory with those treads, or better yet what dealers might offer those tires as options.”
“You got it,” Davis said.
Harry turned to Vicky. “What did you come up with on the abuse victim and his family?”
Vicky opened her notebook. “The kid’s name is Billy Hall, but that’s something we can’t let out to the media. His identity is still protected as a juvenile. He’s fifteen years old-he was barely fourteen when Darlene abused him.”
Nick Benevuto let out a snort. “I wish somebody like Darlene had abused me when I was fourteen.”
Soft laughter filled the room.
Vicky inhaled and let out a long breath. “Alright, guys, let’s get something straight. It is abuse whether it’s done to a male or female. And it does cause harm. Trust me. I saw enough of it in sex crimes.” She could tell she wasn’t getting through to most of them. “Look, I know it’s hard for all you macho guys not to think that what Darlene did wasn’t all that terrible. I’ve heard the Who did she hurt? argument over and over in cases like hers. But try to think of it as a male teacher doing what she did to a fourteen-year-old girl. Trust me, it’s the same power trip and it’s just as damaging. This kid is shell-shocked from all the notoriety. He just wants it to go away and he wants a hole to hide in until it does. His parents are two hardworking, blue-collar types, and they just want the same thing. They’ve got friends and neighbors who have turned their backs on them because they refused to let the kid testify. And it doesn’t matter that they did that based on a psychologist’s recommendation. The friends and neighbors are salt-of-earth types themselves, and they all wanted Darlene hung out to dry. When she was allowed to cop a plea, so the kid wouldn’t have to testify, they took it out on the parents. The parents told me that even the people in the church they attended turned their backs on them.”