A False Dawn

FOUR

The feeling was almost surreal. For years I had investigated crime scenes. Now I was the one being questioned. The initial battery of Volusia County deputies had been efficient, articulate, and polite in asking most of the right questions. Had I known the victim? Did I see anyone? They scribbled notes, eyes panning my face while I explained what happened. I gave them permission to search my car as a team of forensics people started sifting through the surroundings.

Then the detectives arrived. A man and a woman got out of an unmarked Crown Vic. Another man, who was alone, parked behind them and stayed in his car with a cell phone welded to his ear. The detectives huddled with two officers for a few minutes, heads nodding and glancing toward me. Then they walked in my direction.

She was in her mid-thirties, an attractive brunette with an aggressive, no nonsense walk. The man was a little younger. African-American, light skin, square shoulders. They both carried notepads and small tape recorders.

She said, “Mr. O’Brien?”

“That would be me.”

“I’m Detective Leslie Moore, and this is Detective Dan Grant, homicide.” Detective Grant removed his sunglasses and nodded. The woman continued, “I understand you worked homicide for Miami PD?”

“Thirteen years.”

Detective Grant said, “Well, you ought to be used to this. What’d you see?”

“You never get used to it.” I told them the entire story. They didn’t interrupt. I concluded by asking them a question. “Is she alive?”

“We don’t know,” Detective Moore said. “She’s in surgery.”

Detective Grant folded his notepad, looked out across the river. “You move up here from Miami, left a place where you investigated killings, and now you find one not far from your house. I guess you’re pretty unlucky, huh?”

“Detective Moore just said the vic’s in surgery. So, at this moment, it’s not a murder. As far as I could tell, the young woman was raped, stabbed and left for dead.”

“How’d you know she was raped?” he asked.

“It was obvious.”

Detective Moore interrupted. “Mr. O’Brien, when you spoke with this man,” she paused and looked at her notes, “this Joe Billie…with your background, did you sense anything suspicious about him?”

“I was intrigued that he’d been walking in the river. Not many people do that.”

“What's your occupation now?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Does it get boring sitting home all day after a career with Miami PD?”

“I don’t sit home all day. I’m remolding the old place.”

She smiled. “We appreciate your cooperation. I just like to know where we might be able to locate you if you’re not home.”

“You have my cell.”

“Sometimes people forget their cell phones.”

“I spend time working on an old sport fishing boat I have at Ponce Marina.”

“You in the charter fishing business?” Detective Grant asked

“Thinking about it.”

The detective who had been sitting in the car approached. His shaved head glistened in the sun. He stepped in front of the other two detectives and came a little too close to my personal space. I could smell his after-shave and perspiration soaking into his starched collar. A blood vessel moved beneath the skin near his left forehead and pulsated like a worm crawling under his scalp.

“I’m Detective Slater. We appreciate your cooperation here, Mr. O’Brien. In your excitement, and it happens to lots of folks who stumble upon a crime scene, you didn’t compromise anything, right? You know, pick up any possible evidence.”

I looked at my reflection in his sunglasses and saw myself grin like I was just asked how long I’d been potty trained. “I tried to save a young woman’s life.”

He glanced down at my hands. “How’d you get those cuts?”

“I’m restoring an old house. Replacing wood. House looks better than me.”

“I guess the scratch on your chin came from the dock.”

“That’s right.”

“You never saw the victim before today?”

“That’s correct.”

“You saw nobody around? Just happened to walk up on a dying woman?”

“While you were on your cell phone, I explained to these detectives why I was here. Prior to that, I gave a full report to the officers.”

“You told the deputies that a man approached your dock.” He paused for effect. “Let me get this story straight…you said he walked out of the river?”

“He seemed as serious as the guys with the metal detectors. But he was looking for arrowheads. Had a sack full of them.”

“How’d he get in the river?” Slater asked.

“I suppose he walked.”

“According to your statement, the man docked his canoe a half mile from your home and walked into the river hunting arrowheads.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Kinda risky. Gators are mating and building nests. They get very territorial.”

“The man’s probably native Seminole. They’ve dodged gators for centuries.”

“Why were you looking for him?

“He’d offered to help me repair my dock. But I didn’t get his number before he left. The man wasn’t acting like someone who’d raped and beaten a woman.”

“How’d you know she was raped?”

“It was evident — blood, a lot of it.”

Detective Slater took out a handkerchief and wiped his bald head. He carefully folded the handkerchief and tucked it into his pocket. “Mr. O’Brien, you’re using a lot of supposition. We assume the victim was raped, but we haven’t received a report from the hospital. And you say this Joe Billie, a man who walks on water, didn’t ‘act like’ someone who’d just committed a heinous crime.”

“I worked homicide for thirteen years. Miami.”

Slater slowly removed his sunglasses. He seemed to be seeing me for the first time. “You look a little young to retire.”

I said nothing.

“Did the victim say anything to you? Anything at all?”

There was something different about the way he asked the question. His eyes too eager to get an answer. The body language edgy. I thought about mentioning what I heard the girl say, but I didn’t. “She was going into shock when I found her.”

“Too bad. Just a short description of the perp would help.”

I turned to leave.

Slater said, “We found a gun under the seat in your Jeep.”

“I have a permit to carry it.”

“No doubt.”

He handed his business card to me. “If you remember any other details, here’s my number. It’s an interesting coincidence, Mr. O’Brien. You worked homicide in Miami, you move out here, and you walk into a crime seen that might become a murder.”

I drove slowly east on State Road 44 and tried to put the pieces of the morning together. I needed to sort out the smallest details of what I’d just experienced. I decided to drive to Ponce Inlet, buy a new bilge pump, breathe some salt air and install the pump on Jupiter. I’d try to forget the look in the girl’s eye.

There was one problem: I couldn’t forget it. Ever.