The Poet (30 page)

The telling thing about the pictures, however, was not that some of the children were nude, but the looks on their faces, according to Charles Hounchell, the former Hillsborough County prosecutor who was assigned to the case.

“All the kids were scared,” Hounchell said Friday in a telephone interview from Tampa where he is now in private practice. “These kids didn’t like what was being done and it showed. It really went to the truth of the case. What their faces said in the photos matched the things they told the counselors.”

But at trial, the photos were more important than the counselors and what the children had told them. Despite objections from Gladden that the photos had been discovered during an illegal search of his apartment by a police officer whose son was one of the alleged molestation victims, the judge allowed the photos into evidence.

Jurors said afterward that they relied almost exclusively on the photos to convict Gladden because the two counselors who dealt with the children had been discredited by the attorney representing Gladden for their alleged methods of leading the children into voicing accusations against Gladden.

After his conviction, Gladden was sentenced to 70 years’ imprisonment to be served at the Union Correctional Institute at Raiford.

In the prison, Gladden, who already had a degree in English literature, studied poetry, psychology and the law. It appears that it is in the law that he excelled. The convicted molester quickly learned the skills of a jailhouse lawyer, according to Hounchell, and helped other inmates with appellate briefs while composing his own.

Among his more celebrated “clients” in the prison’s sexual offender ward were Donel Forks, the so-called pillowcase rapist of Orlando, former Miami surfing champion Alan Jannine and Las Vegas stage hypnotist Horace Gomble. All three are serving time for multiple rape convictions and Gladden was unsuccessful in his attempts to win them freedom or new trials with appeals he wrote while serving time with them.

But within a year of his imprisonment, Hounchell said, Gladden filed a thoroughly researched appeal of his own conviction which challenged once again the search that led to the discovery of the incriminating photos.

Hounchell explained that Raymond Gomez, the officer who found the photos, had gone to Gladden’s home in a rage after his five-year-old son revealed that he had been molested by a man who worked at the boy’s childcare center.

Receiving no answer after knocking, the off-duty officer said he found the door unlocked and entered. Gomez later testified in a hearing on the matter that he found the photos spread out on a bedspread. He quickly extricated himself from the house and reported his knowledge to detectives who then obtained a search warrant.

Gladden was arrested after the detectives went back later that day with the warrant and found the photos hidden in a closet. Gladden maintained at trial that the door was not unlocked when he had left his apartment and the photos were not on display. Regardless of whether the door was unlocked and the photos left out, he argued, the search by Gomez was a clear breach of his constitutional rights to protection from unlawful search and seizure.

However, the trial judge ruled that Gomez was acting as a father, not a police officer, when he entered the apartment. The accidental discovery of the key evidence was therefore not a breach of the Constitution.

An appeals court later sided with Gladden, saying that Gomez had knowledge through his police training of search and seizure laws and should have known better than to enter the premises without authority. The Florida Supreme Court later refused to reverse the appeals court, clearing the way for a new trial without the use of the photos as evidence.

Faced with the difficult task of winning a case without key evidence the first jury said was vital, authorities allowed Gladden to plead guilty to one count of lewd behavior with a child.

The maximum sentence for such a crime is five years in prison and five years of consecutive probation. By that point, Gladden had served 33 months in prison and had earned an equal amount of good-behavior gain time. At his sentencing, he received the maximum penalty but still walked out of court a free man on probation.

“It was an end run around justice,” Hounchell, the prosecutor, recalled. “We knew he did it but we couldn’t use the evidence we had in our hands. After that sentencing, it was hard for me to look at those parents and their children. Because I knew this guy would be out there and that he’d probably want to do it again.”

Within a year of his release, Gladden disappeared and a warrant was issued for probation violation. He resurfaced this week in southern California with what authorities here called deadly consequences.

Gladden read the story completely through a second time. He was fascinated by its thoroughness and the credit it gave him. He also liked how, if you read between the lines, it questioned the story of the cop Gomez. That liar, Gladden thought. He broke in and he ruined the case. Served him right. He was almost tempted to pick up the phone and call the reporter to thank her for the story but decided against it. Too risky. He thought of Hounchell, the young prosecutor.

“End run,” he said aloud. Then he yelled it out, “End run!”

His mind raced and filled with joy. There was so much they didn’t know and already he was on the front page. They would certainly learn soon. They would know. His moment of glory was coming. Soon now.

Gladden got up and went into the bedroom to prepare to go to the store. He thought it would be best to go early. He looked at Darlene again. Bending over the bed he touched her wrist and tried to lift her arm. Full rigor mortis had set in. He looked at her face. The jaw muscles were already contracting, pulling her lips back into an ugly grin. Her eyes appeared to be staring at their own reflection in the mirror over the bed.

He reached over and pulled the wig off her head. Her real hair was reddish brown and short, unattractive. He noticed some of the blood had gotten on the lower fringe of blond curls and he took the wig into the bathroom to wash it off and to get himself ready. Afterward, he returned to the bedroom and gathered the things from the closet he would need to go to the store. Glancing back at the body as he was leaving the room, Gladden realized he had never asked her what the tattoo was supposed to be. Now it was too late.

Before closing the door and leaving the room he turned the air conditioner on high. In the living room, as he changed clothes, he made a mental note to pick up some incense at the store. He decided he would use the seven dollars he had taken from her purse. She was creating the problem, he thought, she should pay to fix it.

24

Saturday morning we took a helicopter from Quantico to National and boarded a small bureau jet bound for Colorado. It was where my brother had died. It was where the freshest trail was. It was me, Backus, Walling and a forensic specialist named Thompson I recognized from the meeting the evening before.

Beneath my jacket I was wearing a light blue pullover shirt with the FBI seal on the left breast. Walling had knocked on the door of my dorm that morning and presented it to me with a smile. It was a nice gesture but I couldn’t wait to get to Denver so I could change into my own clothes. Still, it beat wearing the same shirt I had already worn for two days.

The ride was smooth. I sat in the back, three rows behind Backus and Walling. Thompson sat behind them. I passed the time by reading the biographical note on Poe in the book I had bought and typing notes into my laptop.

About halfway across the country, Rachel got up from her spot and came back to visit me. She’d dressed in jeans, a green corduroy shirt and black hiking boots. As she moved into the seat next to me she hooked her hair back behind her ear and it helped frame her face. She was beautiful and I realized that in less than twenty-four hours I had gone from hating her to wanting her.

“What’re you thinking about all alone back here?”

“Nothing much. My brother, I guess. If we get this guy I guess maybe I’ll find out how it happened. It’s still hard to believe.”

“Were you close to him?”

“Most of the time.” I didn’t have to think about it. “But in the last few months, no … It had happened before. It was kind of cyclical. We’d get along and then we’d get sick of each other.”

“Was he older or younger?”

“Older.”

“How much older?”

“Three minutes. We were twins.”

“I didn’t know.”

I nodded and she frowned as if the thought that we had been twins made the loss all the more hurtful. Maybe it had.

“I didn’t catch that in the reports.”

“Probably not important.”

“Well, it helps explains why you … I’ve always wondered about twins.”

“You mean like did I get a psychic message from him the night he was killed? The answer is no. That kind of stuff never happened with us. Or, if it did, I never recognized it and he never said anything about it.”

She nodded and I looked back out the window for a few seconds. I felt good being with her, despite the rocky start of the day before. But I was beginning to suspect that Rachel Walling could put her worst enemy at ease.

I tried asking her questions about herself to turn it around. She mentioned the marriage I already knew about from Warren but she didn’t say much about her former husband. She said she had gone to Georgetown to study psychology and was recruited in her last year by the bureau. After becoming an agent in the New York field office, she had gone back to school at night at Columbia for a law degree. She freely admitted that being a woman plus having a law degree put her on the bureau’s fast track. The BSS was a plum assignment.

“Your folks must be very proud of you,” I said.

She shook her head.

“No?”

“My mother left when I was young. I haven’t seen her in a long time. She doesn’t know anything about me.”

“Your father?”

“My dad died when I was very young.”

I knew I had strayed beyond the bounds of routine conversation. But my instinct as a journalist was always to ask the next question, the one they don’t expect. I also sensed that she wanted to say more but wouldn’t unless I asked.

“What happened?”

“He was a policeman. We lived in Baltimore. He killed himself.”

“Oh, man. Rachel, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-“

“No, it’s okay. I wanted you to know that. I think it has everything to do with what I am and what I’m doing. Maybe it’s that way with your brother and this story. That’s why I wanted to tell you that if I was harsh with you yesterday, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks.”

We were silent for a few moments but I sensed the subject wasn’t closed yet.

“The suicide study with the foundation, is that … ?”

“Yes, that’s why I started it.”

Another void of silence followed but I was not uncomfortable and I don’t think she was either. Eventually she got up and went to a storage area at the back of the cabin and got everybody sodas. When Backus was through joking about what a fine stewardess she made she sat down with me again. As the conversation began again I tried to move the subject away from the memory of her father.

“Do you ever regret not being a practicing shrink?” I asked. “Isn’t that what you first went to school for?”

“Not at all. This is more satisfying. I’ve probably had more firsthand experience with sociopaths than most shrinks have in a lifetime.”

“And that’s only the agents you work with.”

Her laugh came easily.

“Boy, if you only knew.”

Maybe it was only the fact that she was a woman, but I sensed she was different from the other agents I had known and dealt with over the years. She wasn’t as sharp around the edges. She was a listener, not a teller, a thinker, not a reactor. I was beginning to feel I could tell her what I was thinking at any given time and not worry about the consequences.

“Like Thorson,” I said. “He seems like he’s got his top screwed on a little too tight.”

“Definitely,” she said and then an uneasy smile and shake of the head followed.

“What’s with him, anyway?”

“He’s angry.”

“At what?”

“A lot of things. He’s got a lot of baggage. Including me. He was my husband.”

It didn’t really surprise me. There had been the visible tension between them. My initial impression of Thorson was that he could be poster boy for the Men Are Pigs Society. No wonder Walling had a dim view of the other side.

“Sorry I brought him up, then,” I said. “I’m batting a thousand here.”

She smiled.

“That’s okay. He leaves that impression on a lot of people.”

“Must be hard to have to work with him. How come you’re both in the same unit?”

“We’re not exactly. He’s in Critical Incident Response. I float between Behavioral Science and CIR. We only have to work together at times like this. We used to be partners before we married. We both worked on the VICAP program and spent a lot of time on the road together. Then we just came apart.”

She drank some of her Coke and I didn’t ask any more questions. I couldn’t ask any of the right ones so I decided to cool it for a while. But she continued on unbidden.