Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [2]
On this day, however, Matthews could see that something different had taken over the Walshes’ demeanor. Perhaps it was the pain of such a jab coming in a context of seeming triumph with the passage of the Child Protection and Safety Act. Or perhaps the Walshes had simply heard one insensitive question too many. Whatever, Matthews thought as he waited for the Walshes’ words, he’d walk through fire for John and Revé Walsh.
Normally, it was John who did most of the talking, but on this day, Revé took over before her husband could get started.
“Joe,” she told Matthews in no uncertain terms, “I’m begging you. I know it’s asking a lot, but I want you to go back through everything we’ve all tried to show the cops over the years. I want you to give it one last shot: put everything together and prove who killed our son, once and for all.”
Matthews had made his decision before Revé was finished. He was honored that she’d even ask, he told her. He was an investigator through and through, and he had witnessed her suffering and that of her husband from the beginning of their ordeal. In truth, he had been aching for much of his adult life to do the very thing that she had just asked of him. He took her hands in his and nodded. He would give it his best shot, and he would start at once.
Chapter Two
Blood of the Lamb
Q: Do you remember if she was a hitchhiker?
A: Yeah, I think she was.
Q: Did she have a name?
A: I wouldn’t know.
Q: Didn’t you ask her name when you picked her up?
A: I suppose so. I didn’t pay much attention to stuff like that.
—Ottis Toole, to an investigator,
Jacksonville County Jail, December 28, 1983
Miami Beach, Florida—July 31, 1981
When veteran Miami Beach PD homicide detective Joe Matthews got the call on Friday from captain of Hollywood detectives Steve Davis, asking that Matthews assist his department in the investigation of the disappearance of six-year-old Adam Walsh, Matthews was more than willing to join in. He was well aware of the anguish that had gripped the entire South Florida community since the boy had vanished earlier in the week. The reward offered for Adam’s safe return had risen to $100,000, the highest ever for a missing child in the United States, and the case, which would be likened to the Lindbergh kidnapping, had attracted the attention of news media, not to mention cops, across the region.
Four days had passed since Adam had gone missing from the Sears store in Hollywood, and though twenty-five officers assigned to the Hollywood PD detective bureau had worked the case full-time, along with assistance from officers from Broward and other South Florida counties, what scant leads they’d uncovered had come to nothing. There was no reason to suspect that Adam had simply run away or wandered off; there were no disaffected family members who might be suspected of abducting him; nor had there been any ransom note or report of anything unusual spotted at the Sears store that day. In short, there had been nothing, and in the days long before AMBER Alerts, children’s faces on milk cartons, and national databases that linked police departments in missing children cases, the Hollywood PD was up against a wall.
Furthermore, there was good reason for Captain Davis to contact Matthews. Matthews, thirty-five, had been employed by the City of Miami Beach since 1967, and had quickly risen through the ranks, promoted after only a year and a half as a patrolman to detective for the Criminal Investigations Division. In 1973, shortly after he married his wife, Ginny, he was promoted to the rank of detective sergeant. At about the same time, Matthews—always skilled at interrogation—had enrolled in a state-certified program for polygraph examiners, figuring the training would make him a better cop and,