A Death in Live Oak Read online

  “Kelso, let’s go!” said Percy, as he shoved the extra tube toward his friend. Then he jumped into the river, and side by side they swam with urgency, pushing their inner tubes ahead of them. Percy had never swum that fast in his life—with the current, it felt like the wind-aided record in the hundred-yard dash he’d set at Dillard High School. Percy arrived first, and Kelso was just a few seconds behind him.

  “Grab on!” shouted Percy, and each woman draped an arm over the inner tube. Percy knew one of them from UF—Tomika. He held her, and Kelso grabbed the other, making sure they didn’t slip away. They’d reached a sandbar in the middle of the river, so Percy planted his feet firmly and stopped the flotilla, allowing them time to catch their breath as the water rushed past them.

  Tomika gasped, but she looked more frightened than exhausted.

  “What happened?” asked Percy.

  Three other rafters floated alongside them and stopped at the sandbar. Tomika glanced at them and then back at Percy. The fear in her eyes remained as she turned her head toward the riverbank and pointed.

  “An alligator?” asked Kelso.

  She shook her head and pointed again, her hand shaking. “In the forest.”

  The tide was low, so the overflow along the banks had receded. The tall, trim trunks of cypress trees rose from the glassy black water—hundreds of them, nature’s version of a picket fence in front of a picket fence, making it hard to see daylight between the pencil-straight trees. Percy squinted and followed her finger to the point she was indicating. Beneath the cypress limbs, a shadowy figure hovered just above the swamp line.

  “I think it’s . . . human,” said Tomika.

  Percy and Kelso exchanged a worried glance.

  “Wait here,” said Percy, and he started swimming toward the bank. Kelso followed. The current fought them until they reached an eddy at the bend. The river was a different place at its flooded banks, where flowing spring water gave way to the stillness of swampland. Splashes of sunlight broke through the occasional opening in the leafy canopy, brightening the Spanish moss that hung from limbs like tattered old fishing nets. With the gentle sounds of moving water behind him, Percy could discern the aural signs of wildlife in the wetlands—the croak of bullfrogs, the screech of a hungry bird in flight, perhaps a heron or an osprey. Percy breathed heavier with each stoke toward the bank. The river became shallower, and even though the black-stained water remained transparent, a rich muck had replaced the sandy bed. Percy’s knee grazed the bottom, which was more than enough to stir up years of decomposition and the sulfuric odor of the marsh.

  “Dude, there could be gators here,” said Kelso.

  Percy was undeterred but not unaware. He pulled himself up onto a fallen cypress tree, careful not to slip, as the smooth trunk had lost its bark to the river’s rising and falling tides. He gazed into the forest and did a double take.

  Something was suspended from a tree limb. And Tomika was right: it did appear human.

  Percy took a few more steps along the fallen tree and stopped, barely able to trust his eyes. It was a man. A black man. Hanging at the end of a taut rope. With a noose around his neck.

  An anger and sickness rose inside Percy, even more intense than his feelings upon seeing for the first time those chilling old photographs from the days of Jim Crow. It wasn’t exactly like those black-and-white images, however, in which the bare feet of a black man hung in perfect vertical alignment with the victim’s eerily elongated frame. This body was contorted, the man’s ankles and wrists bound together behind his back. He’d been hog-tied.

  “What the fuck?” said Kelso. He was a few steps behind Percy, having climbed onto the same fallen tree.

  Percy’s heart pounded. Part of him wanted to turn back, but he put one foot in front of the other, stepping deeper into the swamp, all the way to the upturned roots of the fallen cypress tree, where he froze. Percy recognized the man.

  “It’s Jamal Cousin.”

  “Who?” asked Kelso. He was right behind Percy.

  “Alpha president,” said Percy.

  Percy and Kelso were Kappas, and the only fraternity higher in the Divine Nine pecking order was the Alpha house. Jamal had been a conspicuous “no show” for the tubing trip—but no one had suspected this.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah,” Percy said in disbelief. A hog-tied body was definitely no suicide. “Jamal’s been lynched.”

  CHAPTER 2

  On that steamy Saturday afternoon at Florida Field—“the Swamp”—ninety thousand screaming fans cheered the Florida Gators to a 17–14 victory over the Rebels of Ole Miss. Fraternity Row had reason to party, even if that team from Tuscaloosa was still No. 1 in the nation.

  “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

  It was a chant heard all over Gainesville, as Natty Light flowed through beer bongs like chilly water through Suwannee Springs.

  Around midnight the postgame celebration was popping at Theta Pi Omega, the premier fraternity on the UF campus. Theta had over a hundred active brothers, sixty of whom lived in the two-story antebellum-style house. Most were “legacies,” their fathers and grandfathers having pledged before them. Not one was black.

  “Party central” at the Theta house was the main, oversize room on the ground floor, which was packed with students gripping red Solo cups, a few holding one in each hand. Spotify supplied the latest hits at deafening levels. Some students danced, mostly groups of drunk girls entertaining drunker frat boys. The honor of administering the beer bong went to whoever had just turned twenty-one, so long as she looked good in a string bikini and stiletto heels. There was serious action at the beer-pong table, not to be confused with the beer bong, which in turn was nothing compared to the “bong within a bong,” an ingenious device that was kept upstairs for anyone who liked to drink beer and smoke pot in one seamless, mind-blowing hit.

  Mark Towson stepped away from his friends, walked around the rowdy crowd at the beer pong table, and introduced himself to the blonde who’d caught his eye from across the room.

  “I’m Mark,” he said, loud enough to be heard over the music.

  “Lisa,” she shouted back.

  He signaled toward the hallway, and she followed him to a smaller room where they could hear each other talk, so long as they didn’t mind the couple making out on the couch.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Um, sure,” she said.

  Mark shook his head. “Bad girl.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never—never—let someone get a drink for you. Get your own drink, preferably in a can that you opened yourself.”

  “Uh . . . okay.”

  “Freshman, right?”

  She seemed a bit deflated. “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess. And I saw you ditch the bunny ears in the bushes before coming through the front door. Always double-check when an upperclassman invites you to a ‘costume’ party.”

  She smiled. “You’re just a fountain of good advice, aren’t you?”

  “You don’t get to be Theta president if you haven’t seen it all.”

  “Ah,” she said, as if her eyes had suddenly been opened. “Should I start humming ‘Hail to the Chief,’ Mr. President?”

  “I prefer ‘Fanfare for the Common Man.’”

  She laughed, but she clearly didn’t get it.

  “Anyway,” said Mark, “who’d you come to the party with?”

  “My roommate.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “No clue.”

  “You know, if we were playing baseball that would be strike three.”

  She laughed. “Are you hitting on me, or did my father hire you to be my chaperone?”

  Mark smiled back, then turned a little more serious. “My sister’s a sophomore. Did some dumb things her freshman year. Call it my big-brother instinct.”

  A Theta brother interrupted them. It was Baine Robinson, house treasurer, and his expression was stone-cold serious. “
Cops are outside.”

  Mark didn’t flinch. It was nothing he hadn’t handled before, and it was the reason he no longer drank alcohol at frat parties. “Got it. Hey, it was nice meeting you, Lisa.”

  “Right,” she said as Mark started away. “So, like . . . do you want my number?”

  Mark glanced over his shoulder, still walking. “I’ll bet Baine does.”

  She shrugged, and Baine stayed behind with her.

  Mark continued down the hallway to the foyer. Word of “the badges” outside was starting to spread, and underage drinkers scrambled upstairs to hide. Suddenly the house was filled with students holding only cell phones, as no one was stupid enough to be seen through a window chugging from the telltale red Solo cup. The front door had been wide open all night, but Mark pulled it shut on his way out into the warm night air. He crossed the lawn to the curb, where two squad cars were parked. The police beacons were still flashing, lighting up the front yard with the orange swirl of authority. Four uniformed officers from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Department were standing outside the cars, waiting beneath an oak tree.

  “Good evening, Officers,” he said in his most respectful tone. “I’m Mark Towson, Theta president.”

  “Towson, huh?” said one of the officers. His name tag identified him as Sergeant Walsh. “You’re one of the boys we want to talk to.”

  That took Mark aback. He’d always been the designated Theta spokesperson when parties got too loud, but never had the police shown up looking for him by name.

  “If it’s about the party, we’re more than happy to—”

  “It’s not just about the party,” the sergeant said.

  “Okay. How can I help you, then?”

  “I’m sure you heard about Jamal Cousin.”

  The apparent lynching of the president of the Alpha house had been on the news and social media all day. “Yeah, terrible,” said Mark. “Unbelievable something like that could happen.”

  “Did you know Jamal?”

  “I met him. All the fraternity presidents meet as a group a couple times a year. But I wouldn’t say I know him. Knew him,” he said, correcting himself.

  “That’s part of the problem. For you boys it’s party as usual, but that ain’t the case over at the black houses.”

  “Are you asking me to shut it down?”

  “Excellent idea,” said Walsh.

  “No problem. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Put someone else in charge of that. We want you to come down to the station with us.”

  Mark glanced nervously at the other officers, then back at Walsh. “What’s this about?”

  “Relax,” the sergeant said. “We’re not here to arrest anyone. The chief deputy wants to sit down face-to-face with campus leaders like yourself. He’s being proactive, so we don’t have a full-blown riot on campus tomorrow.”

  “The chief wants to meet with me? Now?”

  “Yeah. You, Baine Robinson, and Cooper Bartlett.”

  “Why Baine and Cooper?”

  “Because those are the names the chief deputy gave me. You got a problem with it?”

  Mark hesitated. Baine and Cooper were definitely not sober. “I don’t know.”

  The sergeant’s expression tightened. “Look, son. You college kids live in a bubble, but we’re sitting on a powder keg from here to Live Oak. The president of a black fraternity was lynched. Jamal Cousin was an honor student and supposed to start medical school next fall.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, the whole world knows it now. Folks are pissed, and they got a right to be. But there’s also some badass gangs pouring into town from Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, and God only knows where else. If you give a rat’s ass about this university, get your frat brothers to shut down this party right now, grab your two friends, and come with us. It’s too late once the buildings are on fire and there’s rioting in the streets, which could happen any minute now.”

  Mark glanced back at the house, still wishing there was a way he could do this alone. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll be right back.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Mark Towson and his two fraternity brothers rode shoulder to shoulder in the back seat of a squad car to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Department. Mark wasn’t worried about Baine. A twenty-minute ride and the seriousness of the situation were enough to sober him up. Cooper looked like he was going to vomit as they entered the station. And he did.

  “Aw, man, I feel so much better now,” said Cooper, and then he threw up on the tile floor again.

  “Dude, you’re gonna get us arrested,” said Baine.

  “Nobody’s getting arrested,” said Sergeant Walsh. He gave Cooper a towel and sent him off to the bathroom to clean himself up. “You two come with me,” he said, and Mark and Baine followed him down the hall.

  Mark assumed that they were all headed to the same place, but he was wrong. Walsh stopped at the first door, opened it, and directed Baine inside with another deputy. He then led Mark to a door at the other end of the hall and showed him into the windowless room. Two men were seated at a small rectangular table. They rose and invited Mark to have a seat opposite them, which he did. Sergeant Walsh left the room, closing the door behind him.

  The older man spoke first. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Towson. With your permission I’d like to record this conversation.”

  The man’s finger was already on the RECORD button.

  “No problem,” said Mark.

  With a click, the recording started, and the man’s voice took on an official tone. “My name is Oliver Boalt, state attorney and chief legal officer for the Third Judicial District of Florida. With me is Detective Josh Proctor of the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Suwannee County?” asked Mark.

  “That’s correct,” Boalt answered. He looked like a state attorney, or at least as Mark would have imagined one. His hair was mostly gray and cut short, and even at this hour he wore a suit and tie, as if to announce that he was in control. Boalt continued in a businesslike tone.

  “With us on a voluntary basis is Mr. Mark Towson, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Florida. It is twelve-fifty-two a.m., Sunday, October the seventh. I will now turn things over to Detective Proctor.”

  Proctor cleared his throat, then began. “Mr. Towson, have you had any alcoholic beverages this evening?”

  “No.”

  “Are you under the influence of any recreational drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Any prescription or over-the-counter medications?”

  “No.”

  “Would you consider yourself mentally impaired in any way at this time?”

  “No. But hold on, okay? I was told that we were going to talk about how to keep the campus safe. These questions make it sound like—like I don’t know what.”

  “Do you have something to hide, Mr. Towson?” the detective asked.

  “Well, no. But—”

  “But you don’t want to answer any questions. Even routine questions. Is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’ve just never been in a situation like this.”

  “Let me be clear about what the situation is,” said the detective. “You are not under arrest for anything. We are here having a conversation. Can we have a conversation, Mr. Towson?”

  The question didn’t leave any room to push back. “Yeah. Sure.”

  Detective Proctor paused for some reason; Mark wasn’t sure why. The silence was insufferable. Finally, the detective put the next question. “Do you own a cell phone, Mr. Towson?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Can you confirm the number for me?”

  Mark was getting so nervous that he actually had to think for a moment before reciting it.

  The detective laid a printed transcript on the table before Mark. “Mr. Towson, this is a verbatim record of a text message that was found on the cell phone of Jamal Cousin. Could you read it, please?”
/>   Mark read it to himself and cringed.

  “Out loud, please,” said the detective.

  His voice quaked as he read it: “‘Watch yo ass on the float nigga. Strange fruit on the river.’”

  “Thank you,” said the detective. “Can you flip to the next page, please?”

  Mark did.

  “This is a call report from Mr. Cousin’s cell carrier,” said the detective. “It shows the number for every incoming call or text, whether or not that number is on Mr. Cousin’s actual cell. Look at the third line from the bottom, Mr. Towson. Do you recognize that number?”

  The paper shook in Mark’s hand. “I didn’t write this text.”

  “That’s your cell number, right?”

  “It’s my number, but I didn’t send that text. I don’t even know Jamal’s cell number.”

  “It’s in the Inter-Fraternity Council Directory, is it not, Mr. Towson? The cell numbers of all chapter presidents are listed there, correct?”

  That was true, and Mark wasn’t sure how to respond. “Okay, forget that. Just look at the message. I never use the N-word. And ‘strange fruit’? I don’t even know what that means. I didn’t send this text.”

  “Then how did it get from your cell to Jamal’s?”

  “I don’t know. When was it sent?”

  “The Saturday before Jamal’s death. Eleven fifty-one p.m.”

  Mark didn’t have to think long to pinpoint his whereabouts. “I was at a Theta party just like the one we were having tonight. Anybody could have picked up my cell and sent it.”

  “Let’s be real, Mr. Towson. You kids don’t ever put down your cell phones.”

  Mark didn’t argue. Instead, he scrolled through his text history, and then with a sigh of relief handed his cell to the detective. “Nothing to Jamal Cousin. See? I didn’t send it.”

  The detective took Mark’s phone, but he didn’t even look at the screen. “I wouldn’t expect you to keep this message after sending it. Unfortunately for you, Jamal did.”

  Mark reached for his cell, expecting it to be returned, but the detective placed it on the law enforcement side of the table, keeping it close at hand. Then he continued.