Jilliane Hoffman (35 page)

82

Outside of those who lived in the county, when people thought of Palm Beach, it was images of opulent oceanfront estates like Lago Mar and the Kennedy Compound that immediately came to mind. Maybachs, Bentleys and hundred-foot yachts. Socialites bejeweled in necklaces that were worth more than companies, shopping along ritzy Worth Avenue, or hobnobbing with other Vanderbilts and Astors at charity functions and debutante balls. Picturesque downtown West Palm, its gleaming high-rises nestled right beside the bright blue Atlantic.

West of the relatively small but famous slice of pricey real estate that ran along Florida’s Treasure Coast, there existed the rest of Palm Beach County. And the further west you traveled on Southern Boulevard, the more removed you became from the socialites and their trail of champagne and caviartoting assistants. In fact, once you passed the upper-middle-class equestrian village of Wellington, there was nothing. Nothing but acres and acres of farmland. Green beans, lettuce, celery, sweet corn, sugar cane. Lots and lots of sugar cane. And, courtesy of nearby Glades Correctional Institution, an occasional chain gang.

Eventually Southern Boulevard turned into SR 441/Route 80. After thirty miles of seeing nothing but green stalks of sugar cane and fields of corn waving in the breeze, Bobby finally spotted life. He had entered the blink-and-you-might-miss-it town of Belle Glade – population 14,906, not counting either the 1,049 inmates housed down the road at Glades Correctional Institution, or the illegal migrant farmworkers who had ditched the census-takers back in 2000. Located on the southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee, at one time Belle Glade was branded with the not-so-distinguished notoriety of having the highest rate of AIDS infections in the United States, and more recently, the second highest violent crime rate per capita in the country. A weathered brown-and-white sign welcomed Bobby to the city that in 1928 had been blown off the map by a monster hurricane.

WELCOME TO BELLE GLADE. HER SOIL IS HER FORTUNE

How ironic, Bobby thought, fingering his cell phone, hoping it would ring. It just might be a few grains of her Wabasso fine sand – a siliceous, hyperthermic Alfic Alaquod – that would fortuitously bring home the victims of a madman. That might finally lead him to his own daughter. Pam Brody with the EPA had called him back to say that a preliminary record check of the past two years showed a wireworm infestation concentrated in and around farms located near South Bay, South Clewiston, Belle Glade, Vaughn, and Okeelanta. That was still a lot of farmland to cover, but it was also far better than the potential 400,000 acres-plus that stretched across central and southwest Florida. Now he was waiting on the call back with the actual farm names and locations that had registered to apply carbofuran. He knew it wouldn’t be a complete list – some companies and farmers ignored EPA guidelines and used pesticides without registering – but it would definitely be a start. Bobby still wasn’t sure where he was going, or exactly what he was looking for – he just knew that out here in the sugar-cane fields he was one step closer to finding it. And it made him feel like he was at least doing something … that he was no longer quite so helpless.

If quiet Belle Glade had ever enjoyed a heyday, it was probably in the forties or fifties. Tired, dated buildings, fast-food restaurants and half-century-old gas stations abutted Main Street, which ran straight through the center of town. He spotted a few folks on the porch of the local convenience store, sucking down a few Milwaukee’s Best’s, chatting the day away, probably like they did every day. Down side streets, Bobby could see rundown duplexes, apartment complexes, and single-family homes. F
OR
S
ALE
signs littered more than a few front lawns. More than one business had shuttered, and besides the convenience store, most of the open ones looked dead.

He drove to the Belle Glade Marina and Campground where Ray Coon’s body had been found under a banyan tree. If he hadn’t had a police report to guide him to the exact location Ray’s lifeblood had drained out of him, he never would have known where to look. It was a peaceful spot. Through a tangle of trees, you could see the lake in the distance. Remote enough for a romantic picnic or a brutal murder. Bobby thought of Jane Doe’s bloody fingertips. She’d been clawing herself out of someplace. Out of her tomb, as it turned out. Far away from a scenic lake and a shaded banyan tree. And she had been brutally tortured in the most inhumane ways before her murderer finally strangled her with the chains he hung her from. She didn’t get a merciful shot through the back of the head. Ray Coon had been a drug dealer and gangbanger with a criminal record. He carried brass knuckles and had bragged to his buddies in the Mafia Boys that he would take out a cop if he was asked to, knowing his own girlfriend’s father was an FDLE agent. The anger that swelled within him left a bitter taste in Bobby’s mouth. As much as he wanted to exact revenge on Ray Coon for taking his daughter from him, the boy’s blood was long gone, his bones sent back to his mom for a proper burial. There was nothing left to see here in this pretty park, and, unfortunately, no satisfaction to be gained by seeing it. Meanwhile, Jane Doe sat in cold storage back in Broward, waiting for someone to claim her. For someone to even notice she was missing. Neither life nor death seemed very fair.

He left the park and drove down the winding two-lane roads that wrapped around cane field after cane field, looking for exactly what he still didn’t know. Down US 27 and through South Bay – another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it migrant town, population 3,859 – and then swinging back north via 827 and Okeelanta, and then back through Belle Glade.

By four p.m. the sun had begun its slow descent over the fields, bathing the sky in a smoky purple hue that was tinged with streaks of tangerine. Pick-up trucks filled with dirty, sweaty men and women passed him on their way home to their cramped shanties and families. A few smiled and chatted, but most looked straight ahead at nothing and no one, a completely blank expression on their tired faces. Harvesting the sugar cane would begin in earnest after December, although some farms had begun already. Bobby started back up Main Street, heading toward 441 and, eventually, to civilization. Hopefully the EPA would call him in the morning with more information. Hopefully Zo would call him tonight to tell him that they’d found something at James Roller’s house. Something incriminating. Something damning. Something that would confirm that it was this guy Roller all along. Something that would dismiss the nagging, heavy feeling in his gut that told him the nightmare was far from over. He’d tried Zo all day, but he wasn’t picking up and he wasn’t calling back – probably because there was still nothing to report. Probably because nothing besides a sex-offender past and a job in an art supply store screamed ‘Picasso’ yet, and he couldn’t bear to tell Bobby that. For his part, Bobby had yet to share Dr Lynch’s findings with him, but that was because he knew Zo would have forbidden him to come out here, just as he had banned him from Roller’s house.

He pulled over to find the bottle of Advil in the glove compartment. In addition to the throbbing headache he was now sporting, his hand had swelled considerably. Damn. He’d probably hair-lined something. He downed three caplets dry. When he pulled back on the road, a rusted tin
LODGING
sign caught his eye just a few yards ahead with an oversized arrow directing him to turn right. His first thought as he passed was that it was strange to have a hotel right out here in the middle of absolutely nowhere and absolutely nothing. It must have been a leftover from the heyday, because who the hell would stay all the way out here?

Then he saw the name of the hotel, partially hidden from view by a sea of waving green sugar-cane stalks, and he slammed on his brakes.

83

Bobby turned down Curlee Road but saw nothing, just acres and acres of lush green. He followed it for a few miles. There were no other signs. So he turned back and then turned down another road, then another, frantically driving through a towering cane maze in the fading light of day, heading deeper and deeper into the heart of nowhere.

Then he saw it, about a mile or so up from the last turn, which, if he remembered right, had put him on Sugarland Road. He stopped the car and got out, staring up at a ramshackle, two-storied Victorian-style house that was set back maybe five hundred feet from the road by a long, winding dirt drive that was overgrown with weeds and brush. Surrounding the home on all three sides were acres and acres of sugar cane. In fact, cane stalks had crept up on the house itself, almost completely overtaking the yard, like in, appropriately enough, some freaky, sci-fi horror flick. In the light breeze, their rustling leaves sounded like soft, gossipy whispers. There were no lights on, no rockers on the warped wooden wrap-around porch, no pitchers of home-made lemonade set up around a late afternoon checkers game. From all appearances, including the boards that covered a couple of the home’s many windows, the house had been shuttered for years.

It was like having déjà-vu. A cold chill ran up Bobby’s spine. He had seen this same house before. A simple black-and-white sign dangled by a single hook, mounted on a post that at one time had been stuck in the middle of a front lawn. It swung with a creak in the wind.

THE HOME SWEET HOME INN

Bobby’s mouth went dry and his heartbeat sped up. The matches. In the bar that night after Gale Sampson’s body was found at the Regal All-Suites, the matches on the table that Mark Felding was spinning said
THE HOME SWEET HOME INN.
The picture on them was of this house. The matches had made Bobby think about his honeymoon in Vermont with LuAnn.

Mark Felding.

Bobby’s chest grew tight and right then and there he knew. He knew what was in that house. He knew what had happened in that house.

He speed-dialed Zo. This time he picked up.

‘It’s not five yet. Stop calling me,’ Zo said.

‘I found him.’

‘What?’

‘I found him,’ Bobby repeated. ‘It’s Felding. He’s our Picasso.’

‘What the hell? What are you talking about?’

‘I’m at a deserted bed and breakfast out in Belle Glade –’

‘Belle Glade?’

‘Yeah, Belle Glade. I got a call from Lynch at the Broward MEs this morning. Toxicology traced soil found under Jane Doe’s nails to sugar-cane fields. Pesticide tests narrowed those fields down to Belle Glade, Clewiston, South Bay, Vaughn and Okeelanta. I came out here to see what I could find.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘You didn’t pick up your phone.’

‘I told you to stay put,’ Zo said with a frustrated sigh.

‘No, you told me to stay away from your scene, so I did.’

‘You’re off this.’

‘That doesn’t matter any more. I need you and the boys out here now. Are you still in Royal Palm?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s only thirty-five minutes. You can do it in twenty with lights on.’

‘How the hell do you know it’s Felding?’

‘I just do. Do a records check on The Home Sweet Home Inn on Sugarland. There’ll be a connection to Felding somehow, I’m sure. Do you have press there now? Is Felding there?’

‘We have some stragglers, but most picked up camp and went home after they realized we weren’t finding nothing. Felding was here earlier, but I don’t see him now. Everyone’s shutting it down ’cause of the holiday.’

Bobby looked up and down the block, which was defined by sugar-cane stalks. No cars in sight. ‘He’s probably back at the Channel Six studio in Miramar. He’s on at six, right? Have BSO pick him up there.’

‘On what?’ Zo asked. ‘What the hell do we have on him but your gut instinct that he’s gonna be connected to this house? You haven’t explained to me how this house you’re watching is even remotely related to this case you’re not supposed to be working any more!’

‘Just pick him up,’ Bobby replied. ‘Ask him to come in and talk. Tell him we have some things from Roller’s apartment we’d like him to look at. That will get his narcissistic reporter chops drooling. Whatever you do, get him before he runs. I think you’ll have all the connections you need once we get in this house.’

‘All right, all right. I’m on my way. I’ll have Stephanie start on the warrants. You’ll have to tell her how you know so much so she can actually get you one.’

‘Fuck a warrant. If he’s got missing girls in there, we don’t need a warrant. I’m certainly not waiting around six hours.’

‘Don’t do shit, Shep. Just sit tight and wait. We’re on our way. And unless you have a good faith reason to believe someone’s in that house and that someone is in danger, we’re gonna need a warrant.’

Bobby hung up the phone, cut the engine and stared up at the house. He tapped impatiently on the steering wheel, his mind racing. It made perfect sense now. Felding was sending himself the portraits – any trace evidence that did come back to him would be expected, since he handled the paintings. Felding was the first reporter on the Boganes sisters’ murder scene in Fort Lauderdale, arriving at either the same time or right after the cops did. Felding was waiting at the McDonald’s for Janizz because he had set up the meet. He was The Captain. He was Picasso. It was Felding who had received as much national attention in the press as the killer himself, making a name for himself on the cable news shows as the shocked messenger boy for a madman. Move over Nancy Grace. The faces of the missing runaways that filled the corkboard in Bobby’s office flipped through his brain like a card catalogue in a windstorm. Allegra Villenueva. Nikole Krupa. Adrianna Sweet. Eva Wackett. Lainey Emerson. So many missing girls. Too many that weren’t even missed.

Was Katy in there?

Zo and the boys would be here in twenty minutes. All he had to do was sit tight for twenty more minutes. Much as he wanted to rush the door right that second, he knew that it would be foolish to go into the house alone. If the girls were being held in there, there could be booby traps set to prevent them from getting out, or to stop someone else from getting in. There was also a chance that Felding worked with a partner or partners, and even though he might be down at the station working off his fifteen minutes of fame, his buddy could be waiting somewhere in the dark house with a meat cleaver to greet any unwelcome visitors. Serial partnerships were rare, but they notoriously did happen. The Hillside Stranglers. The Chicago Rippers. Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole.

He watched the sign creak in the strong breeze that had kicked up. Dark clouds were forming in the not so far distance over the unending fields of sugar cane. A storm was coming. If he couldn’t go in the house yet, he could certainly look around the outside. Twenty minutes was a lifetime. While he had no intention of waiting for a warrant, he knew Zo was going to want more reasons to justify them knocking down the front door. At least for the report he was gonna have to file. Maybe he could see something through the windows or around the back.

Bobby stepped out of the car and started up the dirt and gravel driveway, pushing aside scattered brush and weeds that in some places had grown almost three feet tall. Tire tracks carved a swathe through the mangy growth, ending on the side of the house. Someone had been here recently. Then his eyes caught on something in an upstairs window. A quick flicker of orange.

The waiting was over. Bobby bolted as fast as he could for the front door.