When I had spoken to Detective Meadows on the phone from Tucson, I had identified myself, and told him about my interest in the Walker case and about looking into drug cases on the west coast of Florida in the eighties. Had he been working there then? He said yes. I asked if he knew the name Jeremiah Beaufort, and he said no. He said he could tell me what he knew, but seemed to be more interested in the Walker case. He asked why I was interested. I said that I had a lead on a new confession purported to have been written by Richard Hickock shortly before his execution, and that I suspected the confession would show, if not the sole responsibility for the killing of the Walker family, then some involvement that he had not revealed.

Meadows didn’t sound surprised about a confession, but he did say, “Written?” as if that was a piece of the puzzle he had not had. He wanted to know where the confession was, and I told him I didn’t have it yet, and was wondering if he did. We danced around like that a bit, him sounding cagey, which was odd. Most investigators are happy to talk about cases, especially if they’re cold and talking won’t destroy the case. Maybe he was working on a book. Maybe my vague comments about a written confession intrigued him. Maybe it was just because he didn’t know me from Adam. If I wanted to come to Sarasota, he said, he’d show me his files. And we could discuss the drug activity, too.

I flew into Tampa, picked up a rental car, and met Meadows at what appeared to be his favorite office, a stool at the end of the bar in the Pelican Pub. He told me there about how he, too, had read the request by Hickock to see a priest. “Asking for a priest felt suspicious, and I wondered if he might have confessed to killing the Walkers, thinking he could ask the priest to keep the seal of confession because he was slated to die anyway. So after the DNA testing came up with nothing, I tracked down the name of the priest through the prison chaplain from that time. His name was Victor Santangelo,” Meadows said.

“I know,” I said. He looked surprised, like he thought that was something only he knew. I explained my husband’s involvement.

“You know someone who was tight with Santangelo?” Meadows looked at me like I was two degrees of separation from God. “I was certain he could give me something substantial. Unfortunately, he’s dead. He was in the final stage of pancreatic cancer, and before I could get up to the monastery, he was gone.”

“Carlo doesn’t have anything of use,” I said. “So with Santangelo’s death you’re at another dead end.”