Randy White - Dead Silence

On the drive from Sarasota to Fort Myers, she had tried to bait me, saying things like, “I hear the man was a monster… Locals say the man who killed Bern Heller did the world a favor… What was he like, Dr. Ford… your personal opinion, I mean?”

Whenever she pressed, I removed my glasses and leisurely cleaned them, putting space between my anger and my intellect. She gave up after half an hour, as we traveled south on I-75, forty miles between the Sarasota County line and Lee County, our destination.

Now we were leaving a police substation in North Fort Myers after stopping to pick up her boss and assemble paperwork. I listened to Detective Palmer tell me, “We’re going to do what we call a roll-by. Attorneys and judges call it a show-up. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

A roll-by/show-up was a prearranged meeting with a witness who had consented to look at a suspect. It required two squad cars, the witness sitting anonymously in the back of one vehicle, while the suspect stepped out of a second vehicle and presented himself for inspection.

My guess: The woman Bern Heller had attempted to rape was waiting to inspect me somewhere nearby.

I said, “I wouldn’t have agreed if I didn’t understand what we’re doing.” Which wasn’t the whole truth.

Truth was, I was more concerned with Will Chaser’s deadline, eight hours away, than I was with protecting my legal rights. Under any other circumstances, whether I was innocent or guilty, I would have spent the last hour in silence after demanding an attorney.

It was a gamble, with two lives on the line, one of them mine. But even in a worst-case scenario, they would only lock me in a prison cell, not bury me in a box. I was willing to risk a few weeks in jail, waiting for a court date, on the chance of arriving at Tamarindo Island a few hours earlier.

Detective Palmer said to her boss, Captain Lester Durell, “He’s waived all rights, like I told you. He signed the consent sheet. Satisfied now?”

Durell said, “Well, they say scientists are eggheads,” exaggerating his southern vowels. “I guess this one’s proof enough.” He turned to look through the Plexiglas shield that separated backseat from front in this unmarked car, as Palmer drove us across the Edison Bridge into Fort Myers. “What happened to you, Doc? That big ol’ football player scramble your brain when he gave you that beatin’?”

Heller had almost knocked me unconscious a year ago only days before he murdered Javier Castillo.

I said, “That has nothing to do with it. I’m in a hurry. You know why.”

“Wish I could help.”

“I already told you how. Have your marine division get a boat to that island, with a chopper as backup.”

“Thirty years, I’ve fished these bays,” Durell replied, “and Tamarindo’s a name I’ve never heard.”

Was the man intentionally trying to make me mad? Twice, I’d explained why it wasn’t on charts.

I said, “Why not assume I’m right? Your people would get some extra night-ops experience, and just might make headlines if they find the boy.”

Durell didn’t want to hear it. “Who we supposed to believe? Our local guy at the FBI says you wore out your welcome. Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department thinks the same as this here lady detective: You’re lookin’ for a way to shift attention from a dead-solid murder charge. And even if you’re not”-he paused to take a cigar from the pocket of his sports coat-“doin’ this without talking to a lawyer is no excuse for bein’ so damn dumb.”

I wasn’t sure if he was putting on a show for Palmer or for me. Durell was a wide-bodied man who’d boxed Golden Gloves and played pulling guard for Florida State before taking his degree in criminology out into the much tougher world of law enforcement.

I had known him for many years. Once upon a time, we’d been peripheral friends. But cops on every level soon develop a social armor that separates them from the civilian world as effectively as it shields them and the inevitable scars that come with the job.

It was unlikely that he considered us friends now. Maybe he wanted to make that clear to Detective Palmer. Or me. If anything, a pro like Les Durell would be tougher on someone he knew. But he’d never struck me as the flaky, scalp-collecting sort of cop who viewed hanging an acquaintance as a badge of honor.

I said, “I signed the release. Isn’t that what Detective Palmer wanted me to do?”

Durell turned his back to me, grumbling, “Also a good way to risk screwin’ up this case if it gets to court,” which the woman ignored until the big man turned to look at me again.

“Shelly?” he said to her. “You got a problem with me sittin’ in the backseat with Dr. Ford? There’s a coupla things I’d like to discuss with the man. Personally, I think mosta the evidence your team scraped together ain’t worth a crap.”

When the woman snapped, “Yes! I do have a problem with it!,” I knew what they were setting up. Good cop, bad cop-an old routine. No, Lester Durell obviously wasn’t my friend.

I listened to the woman speak her lines, asking, “Who is this guy, another one of your locker-room buddies? Captain Durell, the days of the good-ol’-boy system are gone forever. At least I hope to hell they’re gone. But if you want to risk me filing an internal complaint-”

“Now, now, Shelly dear. This here’s a respected man. Lives out there on Sanibel with the rich folk, pays his taxes and obeys the law-mostly he does anyway. It can’t hurt letting the two of us just talk sorta privatelike-”

I interrupted, “Les, save us some time. You have questions? Fire away. I don’t mind if Detective Palmer listens.”

The woman said, “Should I be flattered?,” still in her bad-cop role-or possibly a woman who was naturally foul-tempered.

Durell said to her, “How long before we’re supposed to meet our witness?” It was 11:15 p.m.

Palmer replied, “She’s covering third shift but can take a break from the floor after she signs in, around midnight.”

In the dim light, I saw the man wince. He was pained by Palmer’s use of the gender identifier she. But the woman had told me far more than either realized with her one-sentence response.

Palmer had just told me that the witness worked at a hospital-nearby Fort Myers Memorial, most likely. Third shift wasn’t the woman’s normal schedule. It was probably changed to mitigate stress after the trauma of an attempted rape: She didn’t want to be alone at night. It also suggested that the witness was single, had no children and was receiving psychological counseling. And she wasn’t a nurse. She was either a physician or a physician’s assistant. Nurses don’t cover floors, they work in units: peds or ER or critical care.

Extrapolating from what I knew about Bern Heller’s many victims, the woman was probably Caucasian, between twenty-four and thirty-two years old, drove an eye-catching car and was sufficiently confident to park in unlighted areas of public parking lots. Odds were that she had shoulder-length brown hair, was fit, with small breasts and, although confident, had a friendly, eager-to-please demeanor.

Implicit was a scenario that included a successful young woman who had fallen for one of Heller’s many gambits after she’d finished her shift at the hospital and probably after working out at a nearby fitness center. But the witness was also a person with character. She had a strong sense of civic duty. Why else would she risk coming out at night to identify a man suspected of murder?

I said, “Who’s the witness? What can you tell me?”

Durell took the unlighted cigar from his mouth, his expression saying Nothing.

“Doc, what you’d better concentrate on is getting over your sudden case of the stupids. Personally, I don’t think our people got the evidence we need. But if you keep screwin’ up the way you are, I’m afraid you’ll make the Sanibel papers… after they burn you at Raiford.”