Of Guilt and Innocence (18 page)

Both John and Jorge had taken note of Louis's playful candor and general demeanor. He seemed to show no negative emotion about the passing of his mother. Finally, the easy questions were over.

“Louis, I have to be honest wit ya, you seem not to care that much about your momma being brutally murdered,” John said in a deep Georgia accent. His skin was almost leather-like from years of exposure to the southern sun. He was balding, but with small patches of red hair still clustered on his head. He had a thick red mustache he kept neatly trimmed. He was only about five foot six and had a typical Napoleon complex.

Louis looked startled by the detective's statement. “What do you mean? Why would I not care? She was my mother.”

“Where were you last night?” Jorge chimed in, leaning back in his chair.

Louis tried to comprehend what was going on here. Did they actually think he had killed his mother? Fear once again gripped him, only this time he was not afraid of being caught for the crimes he actually had committed; he was afraid he would be caught for a crime he had not. “I was home, in my apartment all night, why do you ask?” He began to perspire again.

“Was anyone with you?”

“No, I was alone.”

“You're kind of an interesting guy, ain't ya? Ain't married, no kids, live wit your momma all your life, but not to take care of her, you live over her garage. No job, no car. What's your story anyway?” John asked.

Louis looked down. “I don't really know what you're asking me.”

“I'm sorry, you didn't always live wit your momma. You lived up in Raiford for a few years, idn't that right? Got arrested for molestin a little girl. Was old momma the only one who could stand to be around you after that?”  One thing the other two detectives were able to investigate about Louis was his criminal history, which they provided Jorge and John with when they arrived.

“I . . . I . . . I don't know what you want me to say.”

“I'm just wonderin why you don't seem very upset. I mean, if it was me and someone cooked fer me, cleaned fer me, paid my bills, gave me money, and was the only one who could stand the sight of me, I'd be a hell of a lot more upset if she weren't there anymore. But you seemed almost relieved when we came in here. Strikes me as peculiar. Don't that strike you as peculiar, Detective Salazar?”

“We obviously know you had access to the house. Your DNA and fingerprints will be all over it,” Jorge said very matter of factly.

“It should be all over in there! My mother lives there, I go in all the time, what would you expect?” Louis said sharply.

“Lived. Your mother lived there,” John pointed out.

“You're absolutely right, Louis. Your DNA is expected to be in that house all over the place. I agree with you. But where your DNA shouldn't be found is on the back of your mother's hair. On the back of her neck. Where you would have left it as you were choking the life out of her from behind.”

“So you do think I killed her? I didn't kill her. She was my mother . . . I would never hurt her. I loved her. She's the only person I've ever remotely cared about.” It finally hit Louis. His mother was gone. She was dead. He was alone, left with nothing. He had no job, no money, no one to take care of him. He always loved his mother, as much as his warped and damaged soul would allow him to love anyone. He began to weep.

“Those crocodile tears ain't gonna cut it, friend,” John said angrily. “How bout these women, you gonna cry for them too?” He took out several photographs of the previous South Florida Strangler victims and slid them in front of Louis.

“We have the killer's DNA taken from all these victims. We are running it against yours right now. If it matches, well, it'll be too late I'm afraid,” Jorge bluffed. “Death penalty. This is your one shot to get in front of this while you can. While I still have a shot at trying to get the death penalty off the table for you. So tell me, what did your mother do to create such anger in you? You found victims that reminded you of her until finally substitutes weren't good enough. You needed the real thing.”

“I didn't kill my mother or any of these women!” Louis shouted through his tears. “I've done bad things in my life,” he stopped short. He almost blurted it out, his dark secret. He almost came clean on his own victims. As he got caught up in the moment it seemed rational, if he let them know about all the lives he had actually taken, they would have to believe him about the lives he hadn't. But he felt something stop him, something snap him back to his calculating self. He felt a confidence come over him. “I didn't kill anyone. Are you planning on charging me? Do you have any evidence at this moment that suggests I'm connected to any of these women?”

Jorge was taken aback by this sudden change in attitude. He had raised an eyebrow at Louis's statement of having done bad things, but he assumed he was referring to the molestation charge that landed him in prison over a decade ago. “We will. In the meantime, since you have nothing to hide, how about giving us consent to search your apartment and the car?”

“Not without a warrant.”

“Well, we don't have a warrant yet, but I will tell you what we do have,” Jorge said, trying to remain calm, though Louis's sudden change in demeanor was frustrating him. He thought he was getting close to a confession, however, now he seemed farther away. “We have the right to collect your shoes. So, if you wouldn't mind, go ahead and take them off and put them in this bag.” Jorge opened a large brown paper bag and put it on the table.

“Why do you want my shoes? And where is your warrant to collect them?”  

“What size shoe do you wear, Louis?”  Jorge asked.

“Ten,” he replied.

Jorge took another photograph out of the folder that had contained the pictures of the previous strangler victims. He put it on the table for Louis to view. It was the picture of a shoe impression in the rug the technician had emailed him. The ruler beside the impression indicated that the shoe that made the impression was ten inches long.

“I thought you might,” Jorge said with a slight smile.  “This shoe impression was made after your mother was murdered. It was made by a size ten shoe. You see the way the print is angled? It's in the position you would expect someone to step as they stepped over the body. It was pressed down hard enough to make an impression. As if someone was lowering something heavy to the ground then trying to maintain their balance as they let go and stepped over top of it. Your shoes are going to be evidence. We are working on the warrant at this very moment, and if you choose not to give them to us voluntarily, which you are certainly in your rights to do, then we will simply keep you here until the warrant is issued. Either way, we are getting those shoes.” Jorge intentionally tried to be as smug as possible. He wanted Louis to think they had him. He wanted him to think the only way out was to confess. It didn't work.

Louis just nodded in agreement and untied his sneakers. “Here you go,” Louis said pleasantly as he placed them in the bag. “I have no doubt you will find my mother's DNA on the bottom of them. You should. I'm sure that is my footprint in that picture. I openly admitted that I discovered my mother's body this morning and squatted down beside her to check to see if she was alive. As anyone else would in that situation. And for me to get back up, after squatting down, I would imagine would take enough force to leave a print like that.” Louis was equally as smug in his retort.

Louis's interrogation continued for hours, but he wouldn't budge. Kristin came in and tried to gain his trust and build a rapport, but it was of no use. Finally there was no choice other than to release Louis and drive him home.

 

 

CHAPTER 13

 

 

They hadn't had time to do much of an investigation, really. Everything had developed so quickly. In the course of a day and a half a little girl went from enjoying an afternoon at the mall with her mother to lying lifelessly on the bank of a canal. And in that short time a family had been torn apart; people's lives were shattered and changed forever. Detectives had run down the typical leads that go along with cases like this: interviewing neighbors, family, friends, all of which had turned up nothing. The first day of the investigation into the actual murder of Ashley Wooten had come and gone in much the same fashion as the short investigation into her abduction; nothing promising to show.   

After another subpar night of sleep, Jim and Dan worked feverishly all morning. The problem was that what they had to work feverishly with was less than promising. They were like two hamsters running in a wheel: they worked hard and fast, grasping at anything they could, but got no useful information.  

The media had taken a large interest in Ashley's case and ran stories on it in the papers and on the local news. There had even been some national coverage of it. Ashley had become a media darling; the beautiful, innocent little girl who had been savagely abducted and murdered. People were rallying for the cause, crying out for justice to be done. A press conference was scheduled for later that afternoon in which Sergeant Phillips would speak and give the public some new information on the crime itself and appeal to them yet again for some assistance, trying to tap in to the sense of outrage people felt. Tom and Lisa had been told of it and asked if they would like to join Sergeant Phillips. Tom quickly declined the invitation, which Sergeant Phillips accepted and understood.  

The crime scene unit's findings from the interior and exterior of the Wooten home yielded several fingerprints that did not match any of the Wooten family members, however, none registered as “hits” when run through the national fingerprint registry. No other useful information was found as a result of the search, which was another roadblock for the investigation.  

While the other detectives were out of the office, Andy Sorrenson quietly looked through the recent tips that had come in and came across one that jumped out at him. To this point, the tips that had come in were about vehicles seen leaving the area, possible sightings of Ashley, and of course the tip that led to the rescue of Heather Martin. This new tip had come from a woman who claimed that she had had an affair with Tom Wooten, saying, “He is not the family man he is being portrayed as.” Andy was puzzled by it. Tom had a solid alibi for the time his daughter was taken and murdered; there was no chance he had committed the crime. Also, there hadn't been much mention of Tom or Lisa on any of the news broadcasts he had seen or in the papers he had read, so he found it odd someone would feel he was being portrayed as a family man.

He dialed the phone number the tipster, Angela Dombrowski, had left. Angela answered the phone and reiterated her statement that she had, in fact, had an affair with Tom Wooten two years ago and that she didn't believe he was happy with his family life based on statements he had made to her. Angela told Andy she was available all day and would speak to detectives about her claims whenever they wanted to come by, as she had the day off from the salon where she worked.

Still very confused, but intrigued by this possible lead, Andy called Jim. He knew this tip should be investigated, but he had a difficult time understanding how it would help catch Ashley's murderer. He was actually disgusted that someone would try to smear a man's name while he grieved for his only child. Jim, however, saw it differently. While Jim did not believe Tom was directly involved in the murder of his daughter, he thought there was a good chance Tom knew more than he was letting on about something. It had crossed his mind that this scenario may play out. A jilted lover with a motive for payback, or something to that effect.

Jim lumbered into the office and placed a manila folder on his desk. He had walked right past Andy when he entered, without saying a word, even though he could clearly see Andy lunging forward towards him as if he wanted to tell him something. He stood at his desk, and with his back turned to him he shouted, “Where does she live?”  There was no response to his question. “Where does she live? You still there, kid? Hello!”

“Uh . . . yeah . . . she lives in,” he fumbled for the paper with Angela's information on it. “She lives in . . . oh, here in Boca, just a few blocks away, actually.”

“Terrific,” Jim said mockingly. He picked up his notebook and walked to Andy's desk to get the information he needed to interview Angela. Andy passed along the piece of paper with her address on it and handed him another sheet of paper. “What's this?” Jim asked as he looked at it.

“Her criminal history. She's been arrested once before for aggravated stalking eight years ago in South Carolina. She also had a restraining order against her stemming from the same incident. I called the department that made the arrest and they said she wasn't arrested for stalking the guy she was fooling around with, who was apparently married. She was arrested for stalking his wife.”

Jim maintained his poker face while reading the sheet of paper and listening to Andy, but inside he was excited.  He thought maybe he had something; maybe this woman was involved somehow. His mood lightened. “Thanks, kid,” he said as he walked to the door. As he grabbed the knob he stopped. “Are you gonna come or what?”

“Sure, I'll come . . . do I need to—”

“Don't make me regret this,” Jim bellowed in tone of annoyance, cutting off Andy mid-sentence. “Just get your ass out of the chair and come on. Dan is interviewing neighbors and Bedard is doing God knows what. You're all that's left.”    

Andy was excited. He, like everyone else, was more or less intimidated by Jim. But like everyone else, he respected him and considered him to be the best detective in the department. Being the youngest and newest detective in the bureau, Andy had never really worked with Jim, and had never been involved to this extent in such a high profile case.