Clifton Campbell - The Glades: Pilot

CONTENTS

One of many Pinkberry communities that sprung up east of Tampa in the last half-decade, thanks to cheap mortgages and really bad ideas. We know how that worked out. CREDITS over its indigenous beauty; a virtual Garden of Eden, a million years old and still in the game. Caladium the size of an elephant's ear anchor a line of flowering plants, herbaceous fern and fleshy white magnolia. Peach palm sagos, entwined in passion vine. A leggy Blue Heron picks at the mud bank.

A couple of small gators drift silently among the lilies, little more than a pair of eyes, keeping an eye on everything. Such as A RED SUV Parked thirty feet from the creek. Von Dutch detailing, 20 inch rims, suggesting an owner of a certain age. INT. RED SUV - MORNING Inside, a man and a girl, asleep. Not cuddling, hardly even touching.

Oh, and the girl - she's not wearing pants. Just an oversized man's jersey riding up high enough to see a pair of pink and blue striped panties. From GAP, if I had to guess. The man, JUSTIN, is a good looking kid of 22, with an athletic build. The girl, ERIN, is 16. Soft blonde hair, a hard and tight body.

Two kids from middle-class families, exploring the nature of things. Both dead asleep... Until one of those heron leap off the bank with a shrieking whoop, and glides, whooping, out over the swamp. Waking Justin. His eyes open and we know immediately this kid did some drinking last night. Red, bleary eyes.

Head pounding. He struggles for short term memory, looks over at Erin, dead asleep, vintage tee and panties - jogging some of last night back to him. He fishes around a dashboard cluttered with beer cans for his smokes. She stirs but does not wake. Justin studies her body. EXT. EXT.

FISHEATING CREEK - MORNING Justin steps out, shirtless, barefoot. He scratches at his face, rolls the kinks out of his neck and shoulders. Heads for the creek over cypress root that knob like veins along the ground. He drops to his knees at the creek, running water over his face and through his hair. Shakes out a smoke, which he lights and inhales, deeply. He turns to look back at the SUV, to see that the girl has not moved.

The cigarette is making him sicker, so he flicks it into the creek, the butt dying in the black water with a tsssst, not far from a body. A dead one. A MIDDLE AGED WOMAN Without a head, hands or feet, lies in the shallow mud. The better part of her right leg and shoulder bitten clean off. JUSTIN Stares at the body for a long beat. Trying to focus.

He struggles through the knee-deep water to get a closer look, stopping a few yards away. The closer look sends him stumbling back for shore, where he collapses on the bank to get sick. INT. RED SUV - MORNING Erin wakes to the sound of his RETCHING. She sits up, sees Justin at the edge of the creek -- events of the night quickly returning to her, but a different night from the clarity in her eyes, causing her to reach for something around her neck - a locket that apparently is missing. Her eyes dart around the car's interior, looking for, then finding the LOCKET on the floor.

She grabs it, opens it up -- Whoever's photo is inside, giving her pause. She stares at it with sad purpose. Then closes it, looping it around her neck as she fumbles around the dash of the car for her watch, checking the time. ERIN Shit. She stands on the horn. ERIN Justin! Shit.

The HORN sends Justin into a second wave of retching. Off which, the camera CRANES up and over the mangrove to FIND the tri-bay area of Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater, a mile and a half west, buffeting the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico. LONGWORTH (V.O.) Hi, you've reached Jim Longworth... INT. FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL VEHICLE - DAY MIKE OGLETREE listens to the outgoing message on his cell as he throws his vehicle into park, eyes fixed on something through the windshield -- LONGWORTH (V.O.) I'm either out seeking justice - or trying to break eighty - leave me a message...

OGLETREE Damn it, Jim. Answer the phone... Ogletree disconnects, getting out of the car as he dials another number -- EXT. FDLE - PALM GLADE SUBSTATION - DAY Stepping to the wall where "Okeechobee Southerners are Sub-Human" has been spray-painted, as the phone on the other end begins to RING... EXT. BELLEAIR COUNTRY CLUB - DAY JIM LONGWORTH over a ball on the fourteenth fairway as his playing partner CARLOS' phone rings.

He checks the ID -- CARLOS Now he's calling me. LONGWORTH Don't answer it. Carlos flips open his cell phone. INTERCUT as necessary. CARLOS Hello? OGLETREE Carlos - is he with you... CARLOS Yeah, yeah, he's right here.

Carlos hands the phone to Longworth. LONGWORTH You must've heard. I'm four over at the turn...birdied three, seven and ten with a lip out at eleven... OGLETREE Yeah that's great. Look, we got a situation... LONGWORTH -- yeah we do.

I'm four holes away from breaking eighty for the first time in my life. OGLETREE A woman's body was found in Fisheating creek. LONGWORTH Well she's not gonna be any deader an hour from now. Ogletree staring at the graffiti on the wall. OGLETREE And this message - tag or whatever - has been popping up all over town. I think they might be connected.

LONGWORTH Who found the body? OGLETREE Some underaged kid and her boyfriend. Fell asleep in the swamp last night... LONGWORTH How underaged we talking? OGLETREE I dunno, sixteen, seventeen. LONGWORTH What was she doing; was she doin' the guy? OGLETREE I didn't ask her that. LONGWORTH Well what the hell did you ask? OGLETREE Nothing, I'm still trying to find her parents... LONGWORTH Listen, just stick her in a room and don't let her talk to anyone.

I want a clean shot at her before her parents shut her up. OGLETREE Jim... Longworth hangs up. Ogletree, frustrated, annoyed, as he disconnects and lumbers inside the Sub-Station. LONGWORTH Call your wife and open your office. CARLOS It's Sunday; my office is closed.

LONGWORTH I just opened it. Longworth waves a HISPANIC GROUNDSKEEPER over. LONGWORTH Excuse me. See this ball? Es yo bolito - si? The groundskeeper nods as Longworth flashes his badge. LONGWORTH This ball is part of a murder investigation. Anybody messes with my ball and you go to jail? Comprende? The worker nods.