Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [45]
Hoisington piloted them back down the rocky trail, then waited for a break in the traffic to pull back on the highway. It wasn’t like they’d pulled off into a paved rest area where there was some nicely banked reentry road. The very maneuver to regain the highway in a sluggish nine-passenger van was not without risk. Some hopped-up kid in a fast car comes up too quickly behind them, they’d all be toast. And all because of a scumbag like Toole? What a way to go.
Still, Hoisington managed it without incident, and had hardly got them back up to cruising speed when Toole called out again, this time near mile marker 130. The group exited the van at roadside this time, and Toole directed them a few yards eastward to the bank of a nearby canal, where a wooden dock jutted out over the water. He’d walked out onto the dock there and thrown the head into the water, Toole said.
Detective Hoffman, who was well aware that they were standing near the spot where Adam’s head had been discovered by fishermen more than two years previously, said nothing to his colleagues. It was after 6:00 p.m. by this time, and Toole said he was hungry and wondered if there was anything to eat. Detective Hoisington handed Toole one of the sandwiches they’d brought along, but another detective swatted it out of Toole’s hand.
“You don’t need to do this guy any favors,” Hoffman told Hoisington. “He’s just jerking us around.”
Toole glanced at the sandwich that had landed in the dirt. “Fuck you,” he said to Hoffman.
“No,” Hoffman replied. “Fuck you.”
At that point, they all got into the van and drove home.
Back at Hollywood PD, Hoffman took another recorded statement from Ottis Toole in which he yet again formally confessed to the murder of Adam Walsh, and provided a detailed account of the circumstances under which he had committed the act. Toole broke into tears several times during this statement, claiming that he liked the little boy and had only wanted to take him home to raise him to be his own child. He had to kill Adam, though, because he realized the boy was very smart and could probably identify him as his kidnapper. When asked why this, of all the killings he had confessed to, bothered him so much, Toole said, “Because that was the youngest person I ever killed.”
While that interview was taking place, Detective Hoisington ran into deputy chief Leroy Hessler in a hallway. “So how’d it go?” Hessler asked.
Hoisington hesitated but decided he should give the chief an honest answer. This was a pretty important matter, and he wasn’t so sure things were running as they should. He explained to Hessler that he was surprised that Toole was cooperating at all, given Hoffman’s treatment of the man, and also shared with Hessler some of the details that Toole had told him about the crime when Hoffman was out of earshot. Hessler listened patiently, then asked Hoisington if there was some point to all this.
Hoisington hesitated. He wasn’t assigned as an investigator to this case, as Hessler well knew, but he was a detective, after all. “I just thought maybe I should write a supplemental report, or at least give Detective Hoffman a formal statement for his files,” Hoisington said, still taken by Toole’s offhand ghoulishness. “If what Toole told me independently corroborates or contradicts something he’s said elsewhere, that might be useful.”
Hessler stared at Hoisington for a moment. “You understand that this is Detective Hoffman’s case, right?”
“Yes sir,” Hoisington responded.
“Then you go talk to Hoffman about all this,” Hessler said and walked away.
Hoisington made an effort to do what Hessler ordered, but by the time Hoffman and his partner Hickman had finished with Toole, it was past ten thirty at night. When Hoisington caught Hoffman coming out of the interview room, the lead detective warned him to make it quick. Chief Martin had already called a press conference for eleven, and was waiting on Hoffman in his office.
Hoisington had hardly begun his explanation when Hoffman cut him off. “I thought