Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [121]
Franklin studied the photo for a moment and Matthews watched his face. Franklin was well aware of what he was working on, and knew the last detail of every roadblock and frustration he’d encountered over all the years. Finally Franklin closed the folder and handed it back. They’d both learned how to play poker as cops. If Franklin didn’t want you to know what he was thinking, you could beat your brains out wondering.
“You weren’t going to ask me what I see there, were you?”
Matthews gave him something like a shrug. “I wasn’t sure, that’s all.”
Franklin nodded. He might have smiled, except for the horror of what they’d been looking at.
“The hell of it is, I have to show the Walshes,” Matthews said. “But right now, let’s have us a cigar.”
Throughout the course of his two-year reinvestigation of the case, Joe Matthews met regularly with John and Revé Walsh to update them on his progress, but despite Revé’s insistence that he share everything with her, he hesitated about showing her and John the images from the machete and the floorboards of Toole’s Cadillac. Still, he could scarcely keep such a discovery from them. Furthermore, he needed their corroboration of the results.
Accordingly, he arranged for a meeting in the law offices of Kelly Hancock, John and Revé’s attorney and longtime friend. Hancock, a former Broward County prosecutor, had already spoken to Matthews and knew what to expect, but he, too, understood how tough it would be for any parents to view what Matthews had uncovered. While Matthews explained the luminol process and tried to prepare John and Revé for what he was about to show them, Revé cut in. “Let me see the photographs, Joe,” she said, her face set.
Matthews hesitated, but finally handed over the packet. Revé studied the photos for a moment—first those of Toole’s machete, then his glowing footprints, and then the stunning image taken from the rear floorboards. With her eyes welling, she turned and handed them to John.
John took his own hard look at the photos, lingering over the last, then glanced up at Matthews and nodded briefly. Finally, he turned and wordlessly embraced his anguished wife.
Twenty-seven years of not knowing, Matthews thought, looking on. And now they finally did.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida—July 14, 2006
As Matthews left Kelly Hancock’s law offices that day, he knew well that he had settled the first of the items on the investigation’s agenda. If there had ever been a doubt in the minds of John and Revé Walsh as to what had happened to their son, not a shred now remained.
But still before him was the matter of presenting an investigative file that would convince the Hollywood police to name Ottis Toole as the person responsible. Until the killer was charged—and never mind that he was dead, and no matter how many other slayings he had been convicted of—John and Revé Walsh could never rest.
Especially not after what they’d seen that day. As a law officer and a father of four himself, Matthews understood well the importance of the task that remained. One last bit of business, and then, just maybe, he could rest.
There were several items Matthews wanted to bolster in his report, but one of the first things he did was to place a call to Reaves Roofing in Jacksonville, seeking information on the employment records of Bobby Lee Jones, the man who said he had put the dent in Ottis Toole’s bumper and who had told Broward County State Attorney’s Office investigator Philip Mundy in 1996 that Toole had confessed the crime to him as early as 1982. When Matthews finally reached family member Alan Reaves at the company offices, Reaves explained that John Reaves Jr. had recently died of cancer. Alan Reaves said that he’d be happy to help, but that no records prior to 1986 were any longer in existence. They had been eaten by termites while in storage, Reaves explained.