The Glades

THE GLADES

Executive Producer......Gary Randall

Executive Producer......Clifton Campbell

Co-Executive Producer...Lori-Etta Taub

Director Peter..........O'Fallon

CAST

Jim Longworth...........MATT PASSMORE

Callie Cargill..........KIELE SANCHEZ

Carlos Sanchez..........CARLOS GOMEZ

Jeff Cargill............URIAH SHELTON

Daniel Green............JORDAN WALL

Erin Williams...........ABBY PIVARONAS

Mike Ogletree...........JOHN CARROLL LYNCH

Justin Brussard.........MICHAEL SEAN ROARK

ACT ONE

FADE IN:

EXT. PALM GLADE STATE PRESERVE - MORNING

A blast of sky and sun. The wet smell of brine lays a heavy canopy over three-hundred year old mangroves. A place where
lush green earth meets clear blue sky.

A wave of humid air pushes Spanish moss out over Fisheating Creek, a dark, handsome river that cuts through Palm Glade, Florida. One of many Pinkberry communities that sprung up east of Tampa in the last half-decade, thanks to cheap mortgages and really bad ideas. We know how that worked out.

CREDITS over its indigenous beauty; a virtual Garden of Eden, a million years old and still in the game. Caladium the size of an elephant's ear anchor a line of flowering plants, herbaceous fern and fleshy white magnolia. Peach palm sagos, entwined in passion vine. A leggy Blue Heron picks at the mud bank. A couple of small gators drift silently among the lilies, little more than a pair of eyes, keeping an eye on everything. Such as

A RED SUV

Parked thirty feet from the creek. Von Dutch detailing, 20 inch rims, suggesting an owner of a certain age.

INT. RED SUV - MORNING

Inside, a man and a girl, asleep. Not cuddling, hardly even touching. Oh, and the girl - she's not wearing pants. Just an oversized man's jersey riding up high enough to see a pair of pink and blue striped panties. From GAP, if I had to guess.

The man, JUSTIN, is a good looking kid of 22, with an athletic build. The girl, ERIN, is 16. Soft blonde hair, a hard and tight body. Two kids from middle-class families, exploring the nature of things. Both dead asleep...

Until one of those heron leap off the bank with a shrieking whoop, and glides, whooping, out over the swamp.

Waking Justin. His eyes open and we know immediately this kid did some drinking last night. Red, bleary eyes. Head pounding. He struggles for short term memory, looks over at Erin, dead asleep, vintage tee and panties - jogging some of last night back to him. He fishes around a dashboard cluttered with beer cans for his smokes. She stirs but does not wake.

Justin studies her body. More of the night returns to him in a flood of drunken memories, driving his need for fresh air.

EXT. FISHEATING CREEK - MORNING

Justin steps out, shirtless, barefoot. He scratches at his face, rolls the kinks out of his neck and shoulders.

Heads for the creek over cypress root that knob like veins along the ground.

He drops to his knees at the creek, running water over his face and through his hair. Shakes out a smoke, which he lights and inhales, deeply. He turns to look back at the SUV, to see that the girl has not moved. The cigarette is making him sicker, so he flicks it into the creek, the butt dying in the black water with a tsssst, not far from a body. A dead one.

A MIDDLE AGED WOMAN

Without a head, hands or feet, lies in the shallow mud. The better part of her right leg and shoulder bitten clean off.

JUSTIN

Stares at the body for a long beat. Trying to focus. He struggles through the knee-deep water to get a closer look, stopping a few yards away. The closer look sends him stumbling back for shore, where he collapses on the bank to get sick.

INT. RED SUV - MORNING

Erin wakes to the sound of his RETCHING. She sits up, sees Justin at the edge of the creek -- events of the night quickly returning to her, but a different night from the clarity in her eyes, causing her to reach for something around her neck - a locket that apparently is missing.

Her eyes dart around the car's interior, looking for, then finding the LOCKET on the floor. She grabs it, opens it up --

Whoever's photo is inside, giving her pause. She stares at it with sad purpose. Then closes it, looping it around her neck as she fumbles around the dash of the car for her watch, checking the time.

ERIN

Shit.

She stands on the horn.

ERIN

Justin! Shit.

The HORN sends Justin into a second wave of retching.

Off which, the camera CRANES up and over the mangrove to FIND the tri-bay area of Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater, a mile and a half west, buffeting the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

LONGWORTH (V.O.)

Hi, you've reached Jim Longworth...

INT. FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL VEHICLE - DAY

MIKE OGLETREE listens to the outgoing message on his cell as he throws his vehicle into park, eyes fixed on something through the windshield --

LONGWORTH (V.O.)

I'm either out seeking justice - or trying to break eighty - leave me a message...

OGLETREE

Damn it, Jim. Answer the phone...

Ogletree disconnects, getting out of the car as he dials another number --

EXT. FDLE - PALM GLADE SUBSTATION - DAY

Stepping to the wall where "Okeechobee Southerners are Sub-Human" has been spray-painted, as the phone on the other end begins to RING...

EXT. BELLEAIR COUNTRY CLUB - DAY

JIM LONGWORTH over a ball on the fourteenth fairway as his playing partner CARLOS' phone rings. He checks the ID --

CARLOS

Now he's calling me.

LONGWORTH

Don't answer it.

Carlos flips open his cell phone. INTERCUT as necessary.

CARLOS

Hello?

OGLETREE

Carlos - is he with you...

CARLOS

Yeah, yeah, he's right here.

Carlos hands the phone to Longworth.

LONGWORTH

You must've heard. I'm four over at the turn...birdied three, seven and ten with a lip out at eleven...

OGLETREE

Yeah that's great. Look, we got a situation...

LONGWORTH

-- yeah we do. I'm four holes away from breaking eighty for the first time in my life.

OGLETREE

A woman's body was found in Fisheating creek.

LONGWORTH

Well she's not gonna be any deader an hour from now.

Ogletree staring at the graffiti on the wall.

OGLETREE

And this message - tag or whatever - has been popping up all over town. I think they might be connected.

LONGWORTH

Who found the body?

OGLETREE

Some underaged kid and her boyfriend. Fell asleep in the swamp last night...

LONGWORTH

How underaged we talking?

OGLETREE

I dunno, sixteen, seventeen.

LONGWORTH

What was she doing; was she doin' the guy?

OGLETREE

I didn't ask her that.

LONGWORTH

Well what the hell did you ask?

OGLETREE

Nothing, I'm still trying to find her parents...

LONGWORTH

Listen, just stick her in a room and don't let her talk to anyone. I want a clean shot at her before her parents shut her up.

OGLETREE

Jim...

Longworth hangs up. Ogletree, frustrated, annoyed, as he disconnects and lumbers inside the Sub-Station.

LONGWORTH

Call your wife and open your office.

CARLOS

It's Sunday; my office is closed.

LONGWORTH

I just opened it.

Longworth waves a HISPANIC GROUNDSKEEPER over.

LONGWORTH

Excuse me. See this ball? Es yo bolito - si?

The groundskeeper nods as Longworth flashes his badge.

LONGWORTH

This ball is part of a murder investigation. Anybody messes with my ball and you go to jail? Comprende?

The worker nods. Longworth gets in the cart with Carlos and they ride off. The worker stands there.

CUT TO:

INT. FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL - BREAK ROOM - DAY

Longworth waits for a burrito to reheat in the microwave. Ogletree stirs a packet of sugar into his coffee from Robbie's as he teases out details from a work in progress protocol.

OGLETREE

No scar tissue, no water in her lungs - nothing in her stomach...

The microwave DINGS. Longworth goes for his burrito.

OGLETREE

...identity and Cause of Death inconclusive without the head -- you might wanna give that a --

LONGWORTH

Ah! Damn it.

Longworth burns his hand grabbing the hot burrito.

OGLETREE

You wanna go look at the body?

LONGWORTH

She's dead. I wanna talk to the girl. Any word from her folks?

OGLETREE

Her mom is M.I.A. Apparently not unusual for a weekend, especially with her husband on a poker run in the Keys.

LONGWORTH

Any o' these geniuses have a record?

OGLETREE

Law abiding, far as we know.

LONGWORTH

What about the boy?

OGLETREE

Local kid. Justin Brussard. Twenty-two...
(beat)
I sent him home.

LONGWORTH

Why?

OGLETREE

He threw up on my keyboard giving his statement.
(beat)
Got a call in to the girl's folks.

Longworth heads off, Ogletree calling out after him --

OGLETREE

She's sixteen. Can't talk to her without a parent or guardian...

But Longworth is already on the move...

INT. FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL - CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY

Longworth enters, sits across from Erin as he eats his burrito. Introducing himself --

LONGWORTH

Jim Longworth.

She looks at him.

ERIN

You a cop?

LONGWORTH

(nods)
Lieutenant. You get anything to eat?
(silence)
You want something? Burrito or something? Something to drink?

She shakes her head no. Longworth looks at her a beat.

LONGWORTH

Would you be more comfortable if we waited till we located one of your parents?

ERIN

My parents? Good luck with that.

LONGWORTH

You're okay talking to me, then?

She shrugs sure, whatever. Longworth sits across from her.

LONGWORTH

We sent your whatever he is - boyfriend or whatever, home. He puked on my partner's keyboard.

ERIN

He drinks too much.

LONGWORTH

He's also older than you. Did you guys have relations?

ERIN

What do you mean? Did I screw him?

LONGWORTH

Yeah, did you screw him.

ERIN

Is that important?

LONGWORTH

Maybe.

She looks at him a beat. Not sure where he's going.

ERIN

I'm old enough to give consent.

LONGWORTH

You're sixteen. That's not old enough. Legally.

ERIN

Are you going to arrest him?

LONGWORTH

Did he have sex with you?

ERIN

No.
(off his look)
And what's this got to do with the
woman without the head?

LONGWORTH

I don't know yet.

Erin looks at him. Digesting that.

LONGWORTH

He says you guys got out there a little after ten o'clock and slept out there all night? Did you see or hear anything?

ERIN

You mean, related to the woman?

LONGWORTH

Yeah. Did you see or hear anything that might help us identify who she was. Like the person or persons who dumped her there.

ERIN

Maybe she died there.

LONGWORTH

Maybe. But we don't think so.

ERIN

What do you think happened?

LONGWORTH

I think she was killed somewhere else and dumped there so an alligator could destroy the evidence.

Erin takes a beat with that. Shakes her head no.

ERIN

I didn't hear anything.

LONGWORTH

What about this spot? Anything about it special for you two?

ERIN

No.

LONGWORTH

No special meaning?

ERIN

No. Just a place to go.