William Heffernan: The Dead Detective

After the initial barrage of outrageous quotes and comments, the story made its way to the back pages and a year passed in relative quiet before the case was ready for trial. By that time, closely held psychiatric evidence had begun to build indicating that Lucy Santos was insane. Two days before the trial was set to begin, the state’s attorney held a press conference with Harry at his side. There, surrounded by the media, he announced that a plea bargain had been reached that would send Lucy to prison for the rest of her natural life. Harry, now eleven, was asked how he felt about the decision and the fact that he would not have to testify against his mother. The young boy, well coached by prosecutors, stared back at the reporters with very lost, very empty eyes and told them that he had been prepared to testify. Then he paused, and in words that had not been scripted for him, said: “I just want to be sure my mother never gets out of prison.”

Three weeks after his mother was sentenced, the county agency that had taken charge of Harry placed him in permanent foster care. The foster family’s name was Doyle. The father, John-Jocko to his riends-was a sergeant with the Clearwater Police Department. The mother, Maria, was a Cuban exile, who ran her home with endless amounts of love, and the efficiency of a Marine drill instructor. There were no other children, and after two years Jocko and Maria Doyle petitioned the courts to adopt Harry and make him their son. Harry had no objection and the courts saw no reason to deny the request. Harry had never known his father, he was simply a man he vaguely remembered who had occasionally come into his mother’s life, remained awhile, and then left again. They had never married and by the time Jimmy was born he was gone for good.

Harry remained with the Doyle’s for eleven years. Over time he learned to care for them, but he never allowed himself to love them, or to look on them as his parents. His affection tended more toward respect and gratitude for the care and love they had generously given him. Trust was never an issue for Harry. Throughout the time he lived with them, Harry Santos Doyle never went to sleep without first locking his bedroom door.

Harry arrived at the Pinellas County sheriff’s office at three-thirty, parked his unmarked car in the lot reserved for police vehicles, and headed for a rear door that would take him to the second-floor offices of the homicide division. He was working four to midnight, which meant he’d probably finish up at three or four in the morning if the night turned busy. But the extra time didn’t matter. It was his favorite shift, one that his fellow detectives, most of whom had families or lovers, preferred to avoid. It also encompassed the hours when the most complicated murders took place. Daylight killings, and those that happened after midnight, usually turned into ground balls-simple, straightforward homicides that often left the perpetrator standing at the scene, murder weapon still in hand. Those, anyone could handle. It was the more difficult, more intricate cases that Harry loved, and as far as the other homicide dicks were concerned, if the dead detective wanted the more complex cases, and the extra, unpaid hours they inevitably involved, it was fine with them. The job was tough enough and dangerous enough as it was.

They had been calling Harry the “dead detective” ever since his appointment to the division. During his time in a patrol car he had kept a fairly low profile about his past. But once he reached homicide the cat quickly left the bag. Detectives have a tendency to remember cases, especially the big ones, and when Harry was promoted to homicide five years earlier at the tender age of twenty-six, there were still older cops who remembered the case of the two murdered brothers. They also remembered that a Clearwater patrol sergeant named Jocko Doyle had adopted the one who came back to life. Given the morbidity of cop humor, Harry’s new name was immediately set in stone.

Harry had joined the sheriff’s department shortly after graduating from the University of South Florida. Everyone thought it was a tribute to his adoptive father, who had become a stabilizing force in his life. To some small degree that was true, but there was also another more driving reason that Harry never spoke about. The sheriff’s department handled most of the homicides throughout the county, and Harry had one very personal goal: to devote his life to the pursuit of murderers.

As Harry approached the rear door of the sheriff’s office, a small, lean figure stepped out from behind a thick pineapple palm. He was dressed in an oversized basketball shirt and baggy basketball shorts, with a Miami Heat cap sitting slightly askew on his head. Even though the boy was squinting into the afternoon sun, Harry recognized the size and shape of his favorite twelve-year-old gangsta, Rubio Marti.

“Hey, Doyle. Wassup?” Rubio offered.

Harry shielded his eyes and saw that Rubio was grinning up at him. It was an infectious grin and Harry had to force himself not to smile back. “What’s up with you, you little weasel,” he said. “And why aren’t you in school?”

“School’s out, man. It’s been out for three weeks. Where you been at? Maybe they still goin’ ta school up north, but not in Florida.”

“I thought you’d be in summer school,” Harry said, playing a game they always played about Rubio’s school work.

“Hey, man, I’m too smart for summer school. You know that. That’s truth.”

“The only thing smart about you is your ass,” Harry snapped back. “And that’s truth.”

“Don’t you be dissin’ me. You do, I’ll have to whoop you good.”

Harry put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Two years ago he had stumbled across the kid while investigating the murder of a Cuban crack dealer. Rubio, who was ten at the time, was working for the man as a lookout, and being paid in both money and drugs. The dealer had been trying to get the kid hooked-something he had succeeded in doing with a number of others. It was a way of guaranteeing both dependence and loyalty from the children who comprised his last line of defense against the police. But Rubio had sold the drugs he had received and given the money to his mother in a vain effort to keep her off the streets. Harry had befriended him and talked him into going back to school. A year later he found himself investigating the murder of the boy’s mother. She had been found in an alley beaten and stabbed fourteen times. It had been a ground ball that ended with the arrest and conviction of her pimp. It had also been one more devastating blow in Rubio’s young life. Now he lived with his grandmother and peddled information to the police-mostly Harry-whenever he could.

“So you down here to have a late lunch with me, or what?” Harry asked.

“Naw,” Rubio said. “I got sumthin’ for you.” He jabbed the index finger and thumb of each hand at the ground as he spoke, playing the gangsta wannabe to the hilt. But with his soft brown face, liquid brown eyes, and strands of curly hair sticking out from beneath his cap, he looked more like a wayward cherub. This time Harry couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“So whaddaya got, hotshot?” he asked.

The boy kept using his hands and shoulders to emphasize his words. “Hey, you know that woman down in my hood got herself offed? That scaggy ol’ junkie broad?”

“Yeah, it’s not my case, but I know who you’re talking about.”

“Hey, I know it’s not your case, man. It belongs to that tall, skinny dude you work with. The one with the fat partner who’s such a mean-assed mutha.”

“Weathers and Benevuto,” Harry said. “What about it?”

“Yeah, well, they tryin’ to pin it on that scaggy ol’ junkie’s boyfriend.”