Dead River (42 page)

Properly poised and wearing his characteristic smile, Harley was ready to answer any and all questions. Several microphones bobbed and jabbed and then finally settled into position. The crowd quieted.

“Is it true that the charges against your client, David Allen Sikes, have been dropped?” asked Jack Stanley from Channel 6 News.

“The state attorney, Owen Jacobson, has dismissed the case against Mr. Sikes,” explained Harley, as he looked around. “The charges of kidnapping and murder have been dropped.”

This sent a wave of frenzy through the crowd. The front row moved in unison closer to Harley, some of the microphones now only inches from his face.

“Was this because of the scandal at the FDLE forensics lab in Orlando?” asked another reporter, yelling to be heard over the din.

“The charges were dropped against my client because there wasn’t enough evidence.”

“But what about the scandal at the lab? Didn’t Sam Weber falsify a lab report that was related to Sikes’s case? Didn’t that cause some of the evidence to be thrown out?”

“I won’t comment on the activities at the FDLE lab or anything about Mr. Weber. That’s now in the hands of Mr. Jacobson.”

“How do you feel about David Allen Sikes being released from jail and possibly committing another murder?” asked Amy Fitzpatrick from the Orlando Sentinel.

Harley anticipated this one. He knew Amy Fitzpatrick and wasn’t surprised she’d ask this. “Miss Fitzpatrick, you know as well as I do that Mr. Sikes did not stand trial. He wasn’t convicted of any crime.”

“But he could kill again,” she insisted.

“He wasn’t convicted of any crime,” Harley repeated calmly. “There wasn’t any compelling evidence against him to begin with.”

And so it went, question after question. Harley eagerly and brilliantly answered all of them until the shine of the moment wore off. He knew when to stop the invasion of questions. It was like a comedian’s instinctive timing to hit the punch line, or a jockey making his move to win a horse race.

 90

BY FIVE-THIRTY Wednesday morning, Adam, Valerie, and Dawn were loaded into the Volvo and on the road to the Keys. The drive along the seven-mile bridge between Vaca Key and Bahia Honda was always one of Adam’s favorite parts of the road trip to Key West. You were surrounded by sparkling deep-blue water, nothing but a long stretch of road ahead of you. And there was no need for air-conditioning, just four windows down and fifty-five miles an hour. The smell of the sea air was spectacular.

This was the fourth trip for the Riley family to Key West. Each time they stayed at the same place, the Rothchild Mansion Inn, in the historic district. The inn was originally the home of Charles Sinclair Rothchild, a wealthy New York City businessman. Rothchild took his family life very seriously. He wanted a place to escape the unbearable New York winter weather, so in 1894 he built an expansive twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion with twenty-five rooms.

The villa had occupied two acres on what is now Caroline Street. The mansion was eventually restored and converted into a bed-and-breakfast. Each room was elegantly appointed with antique furniture, crystal door knobs, a fluffy comforter, right down to the fresh fruit basket awaiting them on the dresser. Adam especially liked the lush foliage that surrounded the swimming pool and the continental breakfast served up at pool-side each morning. They were also within walking distance to Duval Street, where there’s always buzzing excitement in the air any time of the day. Duval Street is to Key West as Bourbon Street is to New Orleans: picturesque, colorful, loud, and always unpredictable.

After dinner that evening the three walked to Mallory Square for the sunset celebration. There were magicians, jugglers, musicians playing guitars and singing, and even a bagpiper. After a brilliant sunset, they walked Duvall Street. They passed by the Hard Rock Café and Sloppy Joe’s. Adam stopped and offered up his story, for the fourth time, about how Sloppy Joe’s bears the name of a confidante of Ernest Hemingway, someone who shared his poignant stories with the author, who then turned them into prize-winning novels.

Then it was on to the Lazy Gecko, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, and Irish Kevin’s. They took a detour off Duvall down Front Street to walk by the Hog’s
Breath Saloon. On the way back to the Rothchild Mansion Inn, they stopped at the Bull and Whistle at the corner of Duval and Caroline. Adam and Valerie had two frozen margaritas each, and Dawn sipped a Pepsi and flirted with three boys. They all listened to the country wailings of Yankee Jack for an hour.

Not once did Adam sense he was being watched, and there wasn’t one argument with Valerie. The two even held hands briefly walking from Mallory Square. Everything seemed so right, but that was about to change.

 91

IT WAS ELEVEN-THIRTY when they arrived back at the Rothchild Inn. There was still activity around the swimming pool. A young, svelte blonde, wearing a red bikini bottom and no top, was sitting on the edge of one of the blue-and-white chaise lounges. Adam figured she was no more than twenty-five. She was leaning backward slightly, forcing her shapely breasts, with stiff nipples, outward. As the three of them walked by the pool, the topless blonde locked eyes with Adam for a brief moment and smiled. Adam’s eyes drifted down to her firm breasts then darted away quickly, only to catch Dawn’s stare of disapproval as she shook her head from side to side and mumbled something. Valerie was a few feet ahead of the two, unaware of Adam’s brief lustful interlude.

Inside the two-bedroom suite, Adam snapped on the TV in the corner of the living room and plopped down on the wicker couch. The effect of the two margaritas was slowly melting away, but there was still a lingering, mellow warmth engulfing his body. He hurriedly flipped through the channels using the remote control. There was a limited selection of cable channels, but who went to the Keys to watch TV?

Something caught his eye. He went back two stations and stopped on the late news on one of the Miami stations. What the hell! There was a picture of David Allen Sikes in his orange jail jumpsuit in the upper right corner of the screen. Under the picture, the words: Sikes Released Next Week.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Adam shouted.

He heard feet stomping on the hard wood floor and looked up to see Valerie and Dawn rushing into the room.

“What is it?” Valerie asked.

Adam clenched the remote control in his right hand and stared at the two of them then pointed it toward the TV. Their heads turned, following his outstretched arm.

“Oh, God!” Valerie shrieked then covered her mouth.

“How could this happen?” Dawn screamed.

Adam sat on the couch, completely disillusioned. He stared at the TV set, still clutching the remote control. The glow from the margaritas was suddenly gone, replaced by rage and anger. He didn’t hear a word spoken by the attractive Hispanic anchorwoman. His eyes were fixed on the image of Sikes with his greasy hair dangling on his forehead. He thought back to the phone call he’d received over a month ago, the man who warned him that Sikes would be set free. Who the hell was it?

 92

LATE TUESDAY MORNING David Sikes, a free man again, trudged down the long, sharply angled concrete ramp that connects the front door of the Brevard County Jail to the parking lot below. An occasional wind gust sent clumps of greasy, dark-brown hair dancing on his head. The temperature was a comfortable seventy degrees and the humidity was low, a Florida dream day. Wispy cirrus clouds overhead were spun up in the cerulean sky like cotton candy, and the sun’s rays filled Sikes’s eyes, sending bursts of pain along sensitive, light-deprived nerve pathways. Snatching a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his ragged blue-jean shorts, he slipped them on and continued down the ramp.

Sprawled across the parking lot was the media circus that had been camped out since early morning. There were several large TV vans, their antennas extending high in the air, pointing to orbiting satellites, ready for real-time reporting of the event. It was basically the same crowd that had greeted Harley Buckwald less than a week ago. NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliate stations showed up, along with a team from Fox News, CNN, and Central Florida News 13. There were reporters from the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Today, Miami Herald, and the Tampa Tribune. The major difference today was an appearance by Dalton Abramson from Court TV.

The buzz picked up as Sikes shuffled down the last fifteen feet of the ramp. He carefully scanned the crowd, glancing away from the bright lights of the video cameras. Rage coursed through his body as he glared at the contingency of reporters and cameramen. He had utter contempt for all of them, the media buzzards and their slanted and sensationalized stories they reported as news.

News my ass, he thought. He wanted desperately to tell his side of the story, the real truth. But there wouldn’t be any such exchanges, no answering of questions or verbal head-butting with biased reporters that wouldn’t know how to report a story if they had it handed to them. No, they would get what they deserved—silence. Besides, who would understand what he was doing? No one, it was that simple.

Suddenly Sikes stopped, thrusting his hands into the front pockets of his shorts, his red Dale Earnhardt T-shirt hanging loose over his protruding stomach. He’d actually dropped a few pounds while in jail but still had a pudgy, boyish shape. The crowd’s buzzing was reduced to a murmur, and all eyes shifted to the man standing motionless.

Dalton Abramson and his team were planted at the front of the crowd, only inches from the bottom of the ramp. They were flanked on the right by Jack Stanley and his CBS cameraman, and on the left was Amy Fitzpatrick from the Orlando Sentinel crowded in close to the NBC reporter and cameraman.

Sikes took a step forward and then stopped again, the sun reflecting off the mirrored surface of his sunglasses.

Dalton Abramson was the first to fire off a question. “Why do you think you were released?” he shouted. He always tried the indirect line of questioning to “loosen them up” as he would say, hopefully throwing them off guard.

No response from Sikes.

“Do you know Sam Weber?” Jack Stanley shouted.

Abramson shot Stanley a look that had “don’t ask another question until I’m done with him” written all over it.

Still no answer.

And then a chaotic barrage of questions ensued, one shouted out over the top of another.

“Why’d you kill Sara Ann Riley?” asked Amy Fitzpatrick, pointing in Sikes’s direction with her ink pen.

“Did you kill Tami Breckenridge?”

“Are you going to leave Florida?”

“Hey, talk to us. Tell us what actually happened.”

“Are you innocent?”

Sikes started down the last ten feet of the ramp and bored into the middle of the crowd. Earlier he’d called a taxi in the lobby and now spotted a Yellow Cab parked at the back of the lot.

As he made a beeline for the cab, the sea of reporters and cameramen parted. Then from behind came a question that stopped him in mid-stride.

“Who’s Gabriel?” someone shouted.

The crowd went silent, only a few shuffling feet and the mechanical buzzing of cameras could be heard.

Sikes turned and glared at the crowd. “Who’s asking?” he inquired.

“Hey, he can talk,” someone yelled. A few chuckles followed.

“Chip Downey, Cedar Key Beacon,” a man yelled from somewhere near where Dalton Abramson stood.

Sikes couldn’t match a face with the voice.

A reporter standing close to Sikes mumbled, “Cedar Key Beacon?”

“Can you tell us about Gabriel?” Downey screamed out again.

Sikes lifted his sunglasses, resting them on his forehead. He stood silent for several moments as a rash of still-camera flashes fired. He finally spoke. “Read your Bible, Mr. Downey. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

Then Sikes turned and headed for the taxi. As the cab pulled out of the parking lot, Dalton Abramson tossed his microphone to his assistant.

“This was a goddamn waste of time,” Abramson said.

Chip Downey walked past Abramson, not making eye contact with anyone.

“Hey, Downey,” Abramson said. “What the hell was the Gabriel question about?”

Downey continued walking. His ball cap was pulled down so the bill met the top of his sunglasses.

“Who’s Gabriel?” Abramson asked again.

“Don’t know, that’s why I asked the question,” Adam Riley said as he walked toward his car, never looking back.

 93

ADAM CUT THEIR Key West trip short the week before, very short. He had wheeled the Volvo out of the Rothchild Inn parking lot at nine in the morning the day after they had arrived and didn’t speak a single word during the six-and-a-half hour drive back to Cocoa Beach. Everything was back to where Valerie and he left it before the trip; the threatening distance between them now seemed to grow in geometric proportions. He was spending more time at the R & R Gun Rack and less time at home, or at work, for that matter.