Bringing Adam Home (30 page)

Not until the following January did Smith take his next significant step, telephoning John Walsh to seek approval to get a DNA baseline sample using Adam’s mandible as a source. A few days later, Smith wrote a memo to his superiors indicating that it had been suggested that he send hair samples from the victim, along with the bloody machete and bloodstained sheath and a sample of the carpet taken from the Cadillac, for DNA comparison testing.

Smith then called the FDLE, looking for the carpet samples that they had tested a dozen years before. But those had been sent back to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office long ago, Smith was told, and accordingly, on January 17, 1995, he drove to Jacksonville to search the sheriff’s evidence room for the carpet samples and try and discover the whereabouts of the vehicle itself.

What he discovered was disheartening, to say the least. Records showed that the Cadillac’s floorboard carpets and the seven squares tested for blood had been received by the sheriff’s property room on May 24, 1984, signed for with the initial “J.” Whether the J stood for Jack Hoffman or Jacksonville, no one could say. Whatever had happened to the carpet samples once they arrived at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, only one thing was certain: eleven years later, they were nowhere to be found.

As for the car itself, Smith learned, it was sold to a dealer at auction, purchased by a man from St. Augustine, then—when it finally stopped running a half-dozen years or more before—towed to a junkyard and scrapped. Smith, distressed at such sloppy handling of key evidence in the case, filed a complaint with the FDLE, but it went nowhere.

As for the machete and its sheath, those items remained in the possession of the Hollywood PD, and Smith forwarded them for testing. Once again, the results were not what he or Matthews hoped for. Though testing on those items performed by FDLE serologist James Pollack in 1983 had confirmed the presence of small amounts of blood, the laboratory to which they were sent for DNA testing in 1995 could find no blood anywhere. “As a result of that, no additional comparisons were made,” the technician advised.

While that scarcely qualified as good news, Matthews moved forward. Following ten months of effort, he was finally able to arrange an interview with Ottis Toole, scheduled for June 20, 1995. Though by this time Toole had adopted a newly stated policy that he would not grant any interviews to law enforcement officials investigating specific homicides, Matthews was able to convince him to make something of an exception.

Matthews had arranged for Toole’s prison counselor to identify him in his role as a clinical research associate from Nova Southeastern University and a police detective from Miami Beach, not Hollywood, all of which was true. Toole was told that he was simply one of many convicted murderers to be interviewed by Matthews, who was conducting a study of the phenomenon of serial killing. After some consideration, Toole agreed to talk, and the interview was set to be conducted in the prison library without the use of handcuffs or restraints, so that it might seem more like a bit of academic inquiry than an interrogation.

Though it had taken some time, Matthews was champing at the bit. After years of frustration, he would finally have the chance to fix the lens of reason upon the only viable suspect in the murder of Adam Walsh.

On Father’s Day, Sunday, June 18, two days before the interview was scheduled, Matthews called Detective Smith to make sure all was in order for the trip to Starke. There was an awkward pause when Smith realized who was on the other end of the line.

“Hasn’t anyone called you?” he asked Matthews.

“About what?” Matthews asked, wary.

“Well . . .  ,” Smith fumbled, “actually Chief Witt wants me to take this juvenile division detective Navarro along to conduct the interview instead of you.”

To Matthews, it seemed as if he were reliving a familiar nightmare. “You can’t be serious,” he told Smith.

“Look, Joe,” said Smith. “I’m sorry. This was not my call. I hope you know that.”

Matthews knew nothing, really, except that it had to be some giant mistake. Chief Witt had gone to Matthews’s own superiors to negotiate an interagency agreement. Hollywood PD had come to
him
, not the other way around.

Since it was Sunday, however, there was no way to contact Witt, and Matthews could only stew until Monday morning, when he called the chief, hoping to clear up the misunderstanding. When the two finally spoke, Witt quickly explained that there was nothing to explain. He thanked Sergeant Matthews for all his help and was grateful to Miami Beach PD for making him available, but, said Witt, for reasons having to do with any possible future court proceedings, he wanted Toole’s confession obtained by his own personnel.

Matthews could not believe what he was hearing. So now Hollywood PD believed that Toole was guilty, but they wanted to make sure they got all the credit for making the case? He reminded Chief Witt that he had asked for Matthews’s assistance, and that Matthews had been working alongside Detective Smith for more than a year, preparing for the opportunity to interview Toole at last.

How about this? Matthews suggested. I’ll conduct the interview, and even if we get a confession out of Toole, you won’t have to include me in the report. Just use the names of your guys, Smith and Navarro. Whoever you want.

Witt allowed that Matthews was being very generous, but he had made his decision. His own men would conduct the interview with Toole, and that was the long and short of it.

By this time Matthews was ready to lose it. “Just tell me the truth, Dick. What the fuck is really going on over there?” he blurted.

There was a moment of silence on the other end. And then Witt hung up.

Matthews sat back in his chair, literally sick at what had transpired. He’d been jerked around before, plenty of times, but never like this. A long time ago he’d become resigned to the fact that Jack Hoffman wanted no part of his involvement in the investigation, but he could chalk that up to one individual’s insecurities, no matter how frustrating and tragic the consequences. But now the chief of the department was chasing Matthews off the case. And for what earthly reason?

Was it because they really thought Toole was guilty and wanted all the credit for themselves? Or was there a darker explanation? he wondered. Could it possibly be that the last thing Hollywood PD wanted was to find that Ottis Toole had been guilty all along?

Hey, the kid’s been dead fifteen years, his old man’s a celebrity now, the guy who claims he did it is locked up for life—why try to fix what isn’t really broken and make yourself look bad in the process?
Matthews shook his head at the very thought.

Matthews would never be able to answer his questions with certainty, but certain things that happened in the lee of his dismissal from the case for a third time have their implications. Late in the afternoon of the same day he spoke with Chief Witt, Matthews returned to the offices of the homicide unit, intending to pick up where he’d left off the day before on a troubling matter that had nothing to do with the Adam Walsh case.

A female police officer had filed a lawsuit against the police department for allowing a hostile work environment and, as a result of that lawsuit, had been transferred from uniform patrol to the detective bureau. Soon after her arrival, she’d complained that her new fellow officers were playing demeaning pranks and tampering with the personal effects on her desk while she was out of the office, spilling coffee on her favorite pink desk pads, placing her animal statuettes in coital positions, and the like. To Matthews, it seemed pretty trivial stuff on both sides, and he scarcely paid any attention to it.

But then, after being called in to investigate a homicide during the early-morning hours on Sunday, Matthews had returned to his office and was leaning back in his chair, trying to clarify what needed to be done regarding the crime scene he’d just left. It was then that he noticed something odd about one of the ceiling panels next to the air-conditioning vent directly overhead. He asked one of his junior detectives to place a chair on his desk and check it out.

The kid, who’d worked for the CIA out of college, took a look behind the A/C grate, and told Matthews he’d found a video surveillance camera there, trained on the complaining officer’s desk but encompassing the entire room.

Matthews notified his immediate supervisor and called in the department’s crime techs to remove and process the camera. Though he could not be certain, the fact that the camera bore the logo of a private security firm suggested that the transferred female officer had taken it upon herself to try and collect evidence against those moving her statues around and writing derisive notes on her desk blotter.

Whoever was responsible for hiding this camera, though, and whatever the reason, Matthews wanted the matter settled. They were a crimes-against-persons squad, with all sorts of sensitive information being discussed in that room. You couldn’t have someone recording what went on there, willy-nilly, no matter how many times you found your turtle statuettes humping each other.

At least getting to the bottom of who had put that camera up there would take his mind off the fiasco with the aborted Ottis Toole interview, he thought. But such thoughts didn’t last long.

He hadn’t even sat down in his chair that Monday afternoon when he noticed a memo placed prominently on his desk. Something to do with the camera investigation already? he wondered. He picked up the sheet and began to read it, disbelief filling him as he digested the words. It was a notice from Patricia Schneider, the major in charge of the detective bureau. Effective immediately, a few months shy of his retirement date after twenty-nine years with the department, Matthews was being transferred back to uniform patrol duty.

Matthews couldn’t believe his eyes. When he went into the office of his commanding officer for an explanation, she shrugged. It was within her power to transfer at will—she didn’t have to explain anything to him.

But no one got transferred without cause, Matthews protested, the sick feeling in his stomach now an icy cannonball. Only if you screwed up big-time. Or couldn’t get along with your superiors. It was the unwritten rule within any department. What was going on here? Everyone knew Matthews was the go-to investigator in the department, and he was the supervisor of the crimes against persons unit. And he got along fine with those above and below him. She knew that.

The major shrugged. She wasn’t so sure. She had heard he couldn’t get along very well with Dick Witt over at Hollywood PD.

Matthews was stunned. Less than six hours since he’d spoken with Witt, and already he was being torpedoed? He left the major’s office without another word and made his way to the office of the chief. Matthews had known Richard Barretto for a long time, and while they weren’t necessarily pals, they got along just fine. Matthews showed Barretto the memo from his supervisor, and Barretto handed it back to him.

“So?” he asked Matthews.

“So?” Matthews repeated. “What the hell is going on here? Is Dick Witt the chief of this department, or are you? I just talked with the major. She let the cat out of the bag. I give Dick Witt a little grief, and suddenly I’m being transferred back into uniform?”

Barretto stared evenly back at Matthews. “Dick Witt doesn’t have anything to do with your transfer. You interfered with a sexual harassment investigation being conducted by our internal affairs division. That’s why you’re being transferred.”

Matthews shook his head in puzzlement. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“That camera you had removed from the office was placed there by IA.”

Matthews was dumbfounded by Barretto’s revelation. “It was a departmental surveillance camera? You mean internal affairs took all that turtle statue shit seriously? That’s still no reason for me to be transferred.”

Barretto folded his hands and leaned across his desk. “I’m the
acting
chief,” he told Matthews. “And I would like to become
the
chief. The major wants you transferred, and I can’t undermine my command staff by issuing counterorders. It’s as simple as that.”

Matthews started to protest yet again, but what was the point? He’d simply done what any other detective who’d found a spy camera in his office would have done. All that was just a smoke screen.

He stood up and walked out of Barretto’s office while the acting chief was prattling on, reminding him that he had just a few months left to retirement, and that he probably had that much leave time accrued. Matthews could in effect retire right now, no worries about uniform duty . . .

Sure, Matthews was thinking. But all he could think about was what had happened to Buddy Terry in Jacksonville. Terry was a well-respected, hardworking detective who had gotten crosswise with Hollywood PD trying to make headway on the Adam Walsh case, and look what had happened to him. Now—and Matthews was certain of it—he had made the same mistake.

When he came home that evening, Ginny met him at the door excited, waving a sheaf of photos. Joe had missed the opening of Cristina’s dance recital the day before because he’d been held up at work, but that was no problem—she had these great pictures of their daughter coming out on stage. When she suddenly saw the expression on Joe’s face, she stopped.

She took a closer look at what was in the box. Pictures from his office—a dozen years of the kids growing up—one of his father, who’d been so proud of his detective son, and framed commendations. When she heard Joe’s account, she was stunned. That’s the thanks he got for caring about a case an entire police department had botched? Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “Joe, things happen for a reason. Your family loves you. I love you. It’s going to be fine.”