It was empty.
CHAPTER 29
Thanksgiving came and went with little more than an obligatory dinner at the Barbers and the Bouchers. Both families spent the holiday with their remaining children and in both homes there was one very obvious, very empty seat.
But the pain of spending the holidays without their missing sons was nothing to remembering their birthdays without them. The hardest day since the boys had disappeared came on Thursday, November 30, Jim’s eighteenth birthday.
Faye was up before the others, wandering quietly about the house staring at pictures of her oldest son. Where had the time gone? And when would anyone find her son. She wondered if anything could be worse than not knowing where your child was, whether he was dead or alive, trapped or in need of help.
She thought about going into Kristi’s room, the place where she had found comfort so many times over the past fourteen weeks. But not even the cuddly little girl could take away the ache she felt today. This was Jim’s birthday—a day when he should have been home having his favorite breakfast and opening a roomful of presents. He should have been picking up the car he’d ordered and getting ready for his final semester of high school. There should have been talk of proms and graduation and college education and scholarships.
But instead there was nothing to talk about. They couldn’t openly grieve for Jim because they still did not know if he was dead. They didn’t know anything. And they could hardly talk about the investigation. So there was absolutely nothing to talk about. All they knew was there was one man in jail who seemed to know something but wouldn’t talk. And another man who had somehow gotten Daryl’s car and Jim’s traveler’s checks. That man, Snake, hadn’t even been questioned yet.
The Barbers and Bouchers had discussed these elements of the sixty-thousand-dollar private investigation nearly every night and now, on Jim’s birthday, Faye didn’t want to talk about it. All she wanted to do was remember Jim and pray for him.
She was surprised that her faith had remained so strong since Jim’s disappearance. In some ways, she might have resented God for not answering her prayers that Jim would be brought home safely. But instead she believed that whatever had happened to Jim was not something caused by God. It was, instead, the result of evil in the world. Indeed, God had not let her down. He had provided them with a way to afford the investigation and he had given them friends who had surrounded them with love and support.
Even if Jim was dead, Faye knew she could not blame God. After all, if her son was dead then while they worried and prayed and wasted away, he was feeling no pain or sadness. He was in Heaven. Still, Faye believed that prayer made a difference. And she continued to pray daily that someone would find the boys soon. Roy couldn’t take much more of the waiting.
As the day wore on, there was little conversation around the Boucher household. No cake, no presents, no celebration. Marian Barber called early in the afternoon to let them know she and Ron were thinking about them.
“Daryl’s birthday is just ten days away,” Marian said softly. “I just keep praying we’ll know something by then.”
Faye was silent a moment. “You won’t know until the actual day of his birthday how terrible it is to remember his birth and his life while constantly being consumed with his death.”
Tears filled Marian’s eyes. “We’re with you, Faye. Call us if you need us.”
As it turned out, by the end of the day, Faye and Roy decided that they did need the Barbers. They needed to talk with them about a plan they’d devised.
What if the families offered to pay for the defense of Spider, the man being held at Volusia County Jail. In exchange Spider would have to tell the entire truth. Maybe he didn’t know anything more than he was saying. But if he did, and if he was in any way responsible, he certainly had no way to hire a defense attorney.
Marian and Ron talked the plan over. It was hard to imagine paying money for the defense of someone who might possibly have had something to do with the disappearance or even the murder of their son. But at this point, the need to find Daryl had exceeded their desire for vengeance. They were willing to do anything to find him, even if it meant lending financial support to a creepy drug peddler like Spider Smith.
Once they had made the decision, Faye contacted James Byrd, who in turn, as he had done every day since the investigation started, contacted Bob Brown. Bob couldn’t believe the desperation of parents who would be willing to pay for the defense costs of someone like Spider. But it gave him a reason to see Spider again. And maybe this time, with the offer of a free defense attorney, Spider just might be able to remember something else.
THE INTERVIEW WAS SCHEDULED FOR THE NEXT DAY, DEcember 1, and Bob arrived ten minutes early. He was sitting in the interview room when the bailiff ushered Spider inside.
Bob stared at the man, wondering if indeed he might know more information. In the two weeks that had passed since the last time they’d spoken, Bob thought Spider had grown thinner and more despondent. He seemed completely shut off from the outside world as if everything about him was dead and only a mechanical shell remained.
“Smith, I’ve got a few more questions for you.” Bob sat across the table from Spider and spoke in a calm, gentle voice. His notes were casually pushed aside and he tried to make Spider feel at ease about the interview.
“Nothing to say, man.” Spider leaned back against his handcuffed hands, kicked his feet out in front of him defiantly, and gazed into space. “Nothing to say.”
“Well, Smith, I got a little something to say to you.” Bob raised his voice a bit in an effort to capture Spider’s attention. “I got word yesterday that the parents of those missing boys are willing to pay your defense costs, but there’s a catch.”
Spider glared at Bob. “What’s the catch?”
“You tell us everything.”
“Hey, man, I don’t need no defense attorney. I ain’t guilty a’ nothing.”
“Okay, that’s fine. We can leave it like that if you want.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, man?”
“I can leave you alone and wait for someone else to talk.” Bob stood up and began to straighten his file. “Eventually someone’s going to do some talking. And when it happens, don’t say I didn’t give you a chance. Your loss, Smith.”
Spider moved uncomfortably. “Wait a minute.” He seemed suddenly anxious and Bob wondered if he had changed his mind. “What’s the deal again?”
“You talk, tell me everything you know. Everything.” Bob spoke each word slowly. “And if, after telling me everything you know, you find yourself needing an attorney, the boys’ parents are willing to pay the costs.”
Spider seemed to ponder the possibility. “You sure about that?”
“Positive.” Bob hid his excitement. Spider must know more information if he was willing to consider the parents’ proposition. “Not only that, but I promise you you’ll get some kind of deal from the state, too.”
“Like what?”
“I will personally go to the state attorney’s office and see that you get the best deal available. Whatever that is. But you have to tell me everything.”
“And what if I don’t know anything, man?”
“You and I both know there’s more to the story. So far, you haven’t been talking much. But Smith, I promise you one of these days someone’s going to start talking. And the way things work, the first one to talk is the one who gets the deal.”
“What do you wanna know, man?” Spider fixed his gaze on his feet and refused to look Bob in the eyes.
“Everything.”
“I need questions, man. I already told you everything.”
“Tell me where the boys were staying.”
“The Thunderbird.”
“You lying to me, Smith?”
“No, man, it’s the truth. The Thunderbird.” Spider looked up now and focused his hateful eyes on Bob. “You calling me a liar?”
/> “How do you know it was the Thunderbird?”
“Saw the room key. Room one-oh-nine. Thunderbird.”
“How’d you see the key, Smith?”
“Lying right out in the open, man, right on the dashboard.”
“Whose dashboard?”
“The Nova.” Spider seemed frustrated as if the answer should be obvious. “The boys’ car. The keys were on the dashboard.”
Bob paused a moment. Whether Spider realized it or not he had just placed himself inside the boys’ car. He stared at the scraggly man before him and slowly sat down. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Don’t sit down, man. I ain’t got nothing else to say.”
Bob stood up to leave again. “Fine. But I didn’t get anything today that helps us find those boys. So don’t expect any favors.” Bob turned around and headed for the door.
“Wait!”
Bob turned around.
“Don’t look too hard for them boys.” Spider spat the words.
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause, man.”
Bob stood motionless, waiting for him to continue. Spider moved restlessly in his seat and then took a deep breath.
“ ’Cause.” He looked once more at Bob and spoke with a voice that was utterly indifferent. “The boys are dead.”
CHAPTER 30
By Monday, December 4, the pressure on Sheriff Duff from Governor Askew’s office to find the Michigan teenagers was becoming a force to reckon with. Despite his promise to personally see the case solved, by the beginning of December Duff had been forced to give the governor three reports showing that his department had made no progress whatsoever.
And so on the previous Friday, in addition to Deputy Joe Deemer, Duff assigned homicide investigator Murray Ziegler to the case. Until then, Deemer had been doing his best to reconstruct the boys’ vacation by means of the canceled traveler’s checks. But neither he nor anyone of any official status had been investigating the boys’ disappearance as if it might possibly be a homicide.
Ziegler was a twenty-year man with the department, a small but gutsy detective with a big voice and a bad attitude toward lawbreakers. Around the sheriff’s office they liked to say that Ziegler had solved more homicides by pure instinct than all his peers combined. He had thinning hair, a full mustache, and a reputation for getting the job done.
Daytona Beach being what it was, Ziegler was a busy man. Never in two decades had he spent valuable investigative hours working a missing persons case. So when he got word from the department’s head honcho, Sheriff Duff himself, that he was to begin immediately treating the disappearance of two Michigan teenagers with top priority, he felt it necessary to take a few hours and examine the facts.
Since his days were so busy, Ziegler took the case home with him Friday night, and by one o’clock in the morning the next day he was still reading. He had gone over the details of the boys’ disappearance ten times until his instincts had taken hold. So that after memorizing the specifics he was instinctively convinced of one thing. The boys were not merely taking the long way home. The boys were dead.
His file included information about Snake Cox and how the boys’ car had been impounded from the trailer park in Tampa. Also the fact that Spider Smith was sitting in Volusia County Jail playing head games with a private investigator named Bob Brown, who apparently had worked miracles in finding out the existing information.
Ziegler had heard of Brown and knew of his professional reputation. But he wondered if Bob knew what he was up against with these two characters. Ziegler was not a slow study and he had seen enough Snakes and Spiders to know the poisonous ones from those who were harmless. And in Ziegler’s opinion Cox and Smith were the type that were flat-out deadly. He decided to call Brown Monday morning. Maybe they could join forces and pay yet another visit to that insect of a man. And if they posed the questions just right, maybe this time they could get down to the truth.
Silence echoed through the jailhouse interview room.
“They’re dead.?”
“Yeah, man. That’s what I said.”
Bob tried not to react too dramatically. He took a deep breath and moved away from the door toward Spider. “What happened?”
Spider laughed. “Listen, man. I’m not gettin’ into details here. Didn’t say I had nothing to do with it, did I?”
“Are you talking to me or not, Smith?”
“I told you what I know. They’re dead. And I ain’t saying nothing else. It wasn’t nothing to do with me, man. That’s the truth. Just that I don’t want you wastin’ your time lookin’ for guys that are dead.”
“Where are they?”
“No more!” Spider shouted. “I’m done. I told you all I know, man. Now get outta here!”
Bob had replayed the scene over in his head a hundred times since Friday and now he knew what he had to do next. If Spider knew that the boys were dead, he knew more than that. It was time to bring in the law and now, with Spider claiming to know that the boys had been killed, Bob figured the detectives would be climbing over each other looking for a chance to get in on what was no longer a missing persons case. Now it was a homicide investigation.
Bob had planned to call Mikelson first thing Monday morning, but before he had the time, he took a call from Murray Ziegler.
“Been going over the details of that case you’re working on,” Ziegler said after explaining that he had been assigned to the case and given orders to make it a priority. “I think you’re right. There’s more to it.”
Bob chuckled in a way that held not even a trace of humor. “You haven’t heard anything, yet.”
And for the next fifteen minutes Bob told the well-known detective what he hadn’t heard. He told him about Spider seeming interested in making a deal and about his shocking statement Friday that the missing boys were actually dead.
“Tell me this, Brown,” Ziegler said. “You believe the guy?”
Bob considered the question for a moment. “You know, I’ve wondered if maybe I’m not dealing with a psychopath when I talk to Spider. Maybe he’s just taking me for a ride. Maybe he’s looking for attention.”
Bob was quiet. “But then I look him in the eyes and what I see there scares me to death,” he said.
“He knew about the boys’ car, right?”
“He knew more than that. He knew that the boys’ motel keys were on their dashboard.”
“That puts him in their car,” Ziegler added, “even if everything else he says is a flat-out lie. We still know he was with the kids before they disappeared.”
Bob was quiet a moment. “You ever been in someone’s car, Ziegler?”
“Sure, why?”
“You pay attention to every little detail?” Bob asked. “You know, noticing what kind of items might be hanging on the rearview mirror, what kind of junk might be on the dashboard. That kind of thing?”
“Not usually that close.”
“Me either. And you’re a hotshot detective.”
“What’s your point?”
“Well,” Bob said, “our friend Spider was so good at catching details that he managed to notice not only the keys on the dashboard but the name of the motel and the room number on the keys.”
There was silence as Ziegler pondered this detail.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bob asked.
“That Mr. Spider just might have done a bit more than soak in the atmosphere while he was sitting in the boys’ Nova?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Yeah.” Ziegler grunted in disgust. “Like scour every inch of the car after the boys were dead and gone.”
The detectives decided to meet at county jail at noon and see if they couldn’t persuade Spider to share the rest of the story. He obviously knew something. Now it was merely a matter of getting him to talk.
THE MEN HAD TAKEN SEATS AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE interview table
when Spider was ushered in. From the beginning, he looked defiant and rebellious as if he despised breathing the same air as the two detectives.
Seeing Spider in person did nothing to change Ziegler’s original opinion of him. He looked like the kind of parasitical human being who for even a few bucks wouldn’t think twice about killing someone.
“What’s the deal, man?” Spider glared angrily at Bob. “Thought I told you I was done talking.”
“Mr. Smith,” Ziegler interrupted, smiling sarcastically at Spider. “I’m here from the sheriff’s office and I want you to know a thing or two before we get started.” Ziegler stood up and, despite his lack of size, appeared to tower over the handcuffed Spider.
“First,” he began to lower his face close to Spider’s, “you should know what you’re looking at.” Spider turned away, refusing to acknowledge the investigator.
“That’s fine,” Ziegler said. “You don’t have to watch. But you have to listen.” He moved his face still closer to Spider’s. “Now here’s the deal. The way I see it, you’ve gotten yourself involved in something pretty messy. Probably a double homicide.” He straightened up and began pacing slowly in front of the inmate so that Spider was forced to turn his head from one side to the other in order to avoid looking at him.
“How do I know that?” Ziegler continued. “Because Friday you told Mr. Brown, here, that you believe the boys are dead. Right now, you’re the only person on the planet who’s told us anything even close to that. And that, Mr. Spider, makes you a prime-time murder suspect.”
Ziegler moved close to Spider once again and stared at the man. “You have any idea what that means in the state of Florida?”
Spider was silent.
“I’ll tell you what it means. You get yourself involved in a double murder involving even a tiny little bit of robbery or grand theft or anything else along that line and you wind up in the electric chair.” Ziegler watched for a reaction and noticed that Spider’s hand had begun to twitch nervously. He stood up and resumed his pacing.