Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [43]
Toole went on to explain to Collins that the cops had found the head of this kid he’d killed, and that now they wanted him to go down to Fort Lauderdale and help them find the body. “I just hope it ain’t there,” Toole said, and then he went back to his pacing and muttering. Collins never told anyone whether he actually did get back to sleep that night. Ordinary people might have had great difficulty doing so. But if men believed everything they heard in prison, there’d be precious little sleep enjoyed there.
At nine on Friday morning, Toole was escorted by Detectives Hoffman and Terry from the Duval County Jail and flown by private plane to the North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines, not far from Hollywood. They were met at about eleven thirty by two other detectives from Hollywood PD and driven by van to the nearby sprawling Broward Mall, which contained a Sears store.
This was definitely not the place, Toole said, as they pulled into the huge lot. The lot outside the store where he’d taken the boy was much smaller, and the mall had been a single-story structure, not a two-story like this one.
From the Broward Mall, they drove next to a Sears store that sat just off Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, but again, Toole shook his head. This was not the place.
Detective Larry Hoisington of the Hollywood PD, who been assigned to drive the team, was behind the wheel. Hoisington next drove to I-95 and piloted them the few miles south toward Hollywood. As they pulled off the exit ramp at Hollywood Boulevard, Toole gazed intently out the van windows. “This looks like the road I got off on,” he told the detectives. As they passed the train station that abuts the boulevard there, Toole noted that the area looked familiar to him. “I think the store is up there,” he said, pointing to the right.
Hoisington glanced in the rearview mirror to be sure which way Toole was directing them. Owing to his various deficiencies, Toole never used such words as left or right, north or south, east or west—just hand motions and phrases like “over there” and “down that way.” Hoisington followed Toole’s gesture and, a few blocks farther, pulled the van off Hollywood Boulevard and into the lot on the east side of the Sears store. He circled the store to the north, then turned along its west facade, where the garden shop was located. “This is it,” Toole said, pointing. “This is where I picked up the kid.”
Hoffman glanced around at his colleagues, then noted the time on his watch. He directed Hoisington to drive the few hundred yards to Hollywood PD for lunch before they started out for the turnpike.
After lunch, however, Toole asked if they could take one more look at the Sears lot, just so he could be sure. Hoisington took them back to the north entrance, where the catalog store was located, and parked the van. After a few moments, Toole nodded again. This was the place, he was more than sure of it. He pointed to a nearby bus bench located in the lot beneath an overhang. He’d been standing right there when he saw the boy come walking out of the doors by the garden department.
He repeated his story of luring Adam into the Cadillac with the promises of toys and candy and then showed the officers where he pulled out of the lot and made a right turn on Hollywood Boulevard, heading west toward Florida’s Turnpike. It took about ten minutes, Toole told them, recalling there was a “sharp bend” in the road somewhere along the way. When Hoisington took them around a traffic circle on Hollywood Boulevard, Toole glanced out at a school located there and confirmed that this was the road he remembered driving on.
To test Toole, Hoisington decided that he purposely would not exit the roundabout where Hollywood Boulevard continued west toward the turnpike. Instead, he continued on toward the south exit of the roundabout. Toole laughed at that. “I did the same thing you just did,” he told Hoisington. “You were supposed to turn back there.” Hoisington glanced at Hoffman, but if