The Nominee

by Alan P Woodruff

  Leslie slid onto one of the stools by the breakfast bar and accepted the glass of wine White offered. Her major contribution to dinner was watching as White worked. She took her job seriously, and she was very good at it.

  “Nice,” she observed after taking a sip of wine. “New?”

  “It’s something a client gave me a while back.” White slid a tray of cheese in front of Leslie. “Try some of this. It goes great with the wine.”

  Leslie nibbled on a piece of cheese. “Mmmm. You’re right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  “We’ll let that one go,” Leslie said. “So what else are we having for supper?”

  “Well, in addition to chicken excelsior, for your dining pleasure we have a mixed medley of yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, Vidalia onions and green, red and yellow peppers.”

  “Ah. My lover, the cook.”

  “Damned straight. Eating well is one of life’s great pleasures.”

  As White chopped his vegetables, Sherlock wandered to Leslie’s side and stood on her hind legs. Only her quivering nose and front paws extended over the edge of the breakfast bar. White ignored Sherlock when she begged. Leslie was another story. The food lady could always be counted on for a treat.

  Leslie stroked Sherlock behind the ear and snatched a mushroom from the cutting board. Sherlock snarfed it down and waited. Sherlock would eat anything.

  “That’s all,” Leslie said to Sherlock,

  Sherlock looked up with sad brown eyes. She could do guilt with the best of them. White was certain that Sherlock was part Jewish.

  “Sorry, girl. That’s all there is.”

  Sherlock looked toward White for confirmation.

  “That’s right,” Leslie said. “He’s the old meanie who won’t feed you.”

  Sherlock gave White a last soulful look and lay down on the floor beside Leslie.

  “That was quite a performance with Graham this afternoon.”

  White put down his chopping knife, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I think Graham is holding out on me. He knows something I need to know.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s just a feeling. The way he says some things. How he looks when I bring up certain topics.”

  Leslie took another sip of wine and waited.

  “It was all too convenient,” White said, more to himself than to Leslie. “His son was undercover for the state’s attorney down in Marathon.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just…”

  “I know how you feel,” Leslie said. “But maybe Graham didn’t have a choice.”

  White nodded. “It’s possible. But something is going on that I just can’t figure out.”

  “What’s that?” Leslie asked as she sipped the remainder of her wine.

  White leaned forward, resting his outstretched arms on the breakfast bar. “There are too damned many coincidences.”

  “Like what?”

  White opened the refrigerator and removed the rest of the ingredients for their dinner. “Graham said Jackson was picked because of his heroin past. Then it turns out his father seems to have had his own past connection with the heroin business.”

  “I agree. That is odd.”

  “Then we find out that a Congressman, who seems to be opposing Graham’s nomination — is connected to Jackson’s father.”

  “And has his own history that seems to be related to Barlow’s activities.”

  White lit the gas stove and dropped a half-stick of butter into a frying pan. “We’re missing something.”

  “Such as?”

  White filled a saucepan with chicken broth, added a pinch of salt, and put it on a back burner. “I don’t know. It’s as if Graham and Lyle Wilson both want us to focus on one thing, but the facts want to take us somewhere else.”

  “What makes you say that.”

  “Graham has an answer for everything, and it’s always an answer that’s contrary to our theories. It’s all too convenient.”

  “Do you think he’s lying?”

  White leaned against the breakfast bar. “Would that I could discover truth as easily as I can uncover falsehood.”

  Leslie sipped her wine. “Shakespeare?”

  “Cicero.”

  “I never was good with the old Romans.”

  White nodded absently as he patted seasoning into both sides of two chicken breasts, laid them in the frying pan and returned his attention to Leslie. “The murder takes things way beyond the original drug bust, and whatever Graham was looking into when the bust went down. David’s afraid of the guy with the blue Porsche, but that’s only connected to the original plan. I think he’s also afraid of something he knows about the murders.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  White stopped dicing a green pepper and pondered the question. “The story David gave when I asked where he was when Jackson was murdered…”

  “What about it?”

  “David was evasive about what he was doing the night of the murders, but he was firm on the fact that his father was at home with him.”

  “But Graham said he was out at a bar, alone.”

  “Exactly.” White turned the chicken breasts and emptied a container of chopped scallions and sliced portabella mushrooms into the frying pan. “David’s story creates an alibi for Graham as well as himself, but Graham didn’t even try to give David an alibi. He had a chance to tell me they were together, but he didn’t.”

  “Do you think David suspects Graham of being involved in Jackson’s murder?”

  “I don’t know what to think. They both had to know I’d ask about David’s alibi. If they wanted to get their stories together, they had plenty of time to do it.”

  Leslie nodded. “So Graham knew he was undermining his son’s alibi.”

  “That’s what it seems like,” White said as he checked the chicken, splashed some wine into the pan and reduced the heat. “And there’s something else.”

  Leslie put down her wine and waited.

  White added a cup of yellow rice to the boiling broth and lowered the flame. “David claimed that the reason he and Jackson left the Keys was that the authorities in Matlacha didn’t care about simple possession. But if that was the reason for the move, Jackson would have known better than to keep two kilos of cocaine in his house.”

  “Which means the cocaine must have been planted.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hasn’t that been your assumption all along?”

  “It is. But we’ve also been operating on the assumption that the arrest had something to do with what Shepard and Jackson knew and could be forced to tell. I have a feeling we’ve been focusing on the wrong motive.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don’t know. White leaned against the breakfast bar and sighed. “This is one of the times I really miss Harry. He had an instinct that…” White stopped and bowed his head.

  Leslie understood what he was thinking. After a minute, she interrupted him. “It isn’t your fault, Lucius. Anything could have caused the clot to break loose.”

  “But I’m the one who sent him traipsing around Pine Island. If I’d just kept him in the office…”

  “Harry was doing what he wanted to do.”

  “And it may cost him his life.”

  “There isn’t anything you can do about it now.”

  “I can find out what the hell is going on. I owe Harry that.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure. I have a meeting with one of the Sheriff’s detectives later this evening. I’m hoping he has some answers.”

  28.

  O’Malley’s was a cop bar in the finest tradition of Irish cop bars. Owned by Sergeant Michael O’Malley, retired, formerly of the Philadelphia Police Department, O’Malley’s was located on Fort Myers” main north-south artery, approximately equal distance from the courthouse, the central office of the Fort Myers Police Department and
the Lee County Sheriff’s office. That made it a convenient place for both formal and informal meetings of officers from both jurisdictions.

  The distinction between Irish and all others didn’t have the significance in Fort Myers that it had in Philadelphia. In Fort Myers, the only relevant distinction between classes of people was the distinction between native rednecks and everybody else. Nevertheless, when they were in O’Malley’s, all law enforcement officers accepted that, at least for the time it took to down a few brews, everyone who wore the uniform was an honorary Irishman.

  From the afternoon shift change at four o’clock until early evening, and again late in the evening when the night shift came on, O’Malley’s was populated mostly by law enforcement officers. It was undoubtedly the safest place in town to go drinking. Outsiders were tolerated, but not made especially welcome. Lawyers, at least those recognized as members of the criminal defense bar, were unwelcome and ignored.

  It wasn’t that law enforcement officers had any more loathing for lawyers than the general public, or even that defense lawyers occasionally got guilty scumbags off. Most cops accepted the proposition that their job was just to catch the bad guys. If the State’s Attorney couldn’t get a conviction, that was their failure. What made defense attorneys particularly loathsome was that the “defense de jour” was that sloppy police work tainted all evidence, and law enforcement agencies were staffed by ignorant morons who had never heard of the Constitution. On the witness stand, rank and file law enforcement officers were sitting ducks for top dollar lawyers. Ripping an officer apart in a public trial didn’t tend to cause the welcome mat to be thrown out at their watering hole.

  #

  White sat at the end of the bar, facing the door, drinking his customary Diet Pepsi with two squeezes of lime, and watching faces as people moved through the short vestibule inside the large, solid wood doors.

  Fifteen minutes later Tony Andrews came through the door and walked straight to where White was sitting. “Let’s talk in the corner,” Tony suggested. “We can have some privacy.”

  There was an unwritten rule in O’Malley’s that the corner farthest from the bar, windowless and dimly lighted, was reserved for private conversations. Even when the bar was packed three deep and every table was filled, the corner would be empty, waiting for those who needed privacy.

  Tony ordered a beer from a passing waitress and followed White. The men slipped into seats on the opposite sides of the corner booth. “It’s been a while,” Andrews began. “How have you been doing?”

  “Same old thing.”

  “I heard you got Howard Marshall off on the wife murder case.”

  “Word travels slowly.”

  “I was on vacation.”

  White took a drink of Diet Pepsi and waited for the inevitable barb. When Tony didn’t say anything, White asked, “Aren’t you going to say anything about defense attorneys getting scumbags off?”

  “To tell you the truth, I never believed that he did it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. It just didn’t smell right.”

  White nodded.

  “You know how it is when you get that feeling?”

  “Yeah. I know. I get those feelings myself.”

  “Something tells me you have that feeling now.”

  White nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

  “The Matlacha drugs and murder case?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your gut telling you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s trying to tell me something, but it’s in a foreign language.”

  “And you figured buying me a beer would help your translation.”

  White laughed. “I figured buying you a beer might get me some information.”

  Tony took a swallow from his bottle. “Like what?”

  “Like any rumors you might have picked up about the case.”

  “Haven’t heard anything. The feds took the case over before we got started.”

  “What about the tips?”

  “What about them?”

  “Didn’t anyone think it was odd that both the tips — the drug tip and the Jackson murder tip — were received by Paul Parker?”

  Tony’s attention shifted from his beer to White’s face. “I hadn’t heard that. But now that you mention it, it does sound odd. What are you getting at?”

  “I don’t know. Right now, I’m just pulling at loose threads… and hoping something will start to unravel.”

  “And the calls to Parker are a loose thread?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary is a loose thread.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. The last year or so, we haven’t been as close to Parker’s staff as we used to be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “All I know is… About a year ago, Parker and the Sheriff got into a shouting match over the way Parker was handling some drug case.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “The Sheriff was pissed at the way Parker was letting defense attorneys carve up his deputies on the witness stand. The Sheriff thought Parker wasn’t preparing his men right. He even accused Parker of letting the defense have information on some things we’d rather the defense didn’t know.”

  “Parker’s required to disclose any potentially exculpatory evidence.”

  “I know. But there’s exculpatory, and then there’s exculpatory. The Sheriff thought Parker was reading the rules a little too liberally.”

  “Did the Sheriff think Paul was throwing cases?”

  “He’d never say that… exactly.”

  “But did he think it?”

  Tony hesitated before responding. “You’d have to ask the Sheriff.”

  “What do you know about the plea Jackson was offering?”

  “Just that he knew something important.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know, but it must have had Parker worried.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Tony shook his head. “Like I said, we haven’t been close to Parker for a while. From what I hear, Parker didn’t want to make a deal. But some of the other prosecutors in his office were about to revolt. They knew Jackson had something important and they were just itching to get whatever information he had.”

  “So what? They work for Paul.”

  “But he’s up for re-election. He needs their support. Whatever he was worried about, his self-interest was more important.”

  “What do you think he was worried about?”

  Tony shrugged. “I can only tell you this; he wasn’t pushing the investigation of Jackson’s murder.”

  “But that’s been taken over by the U.S. Attorney in Miami.”

  “This was all before that happened. Jackson agreed to testify about the drugs and Parker agreed to bail.”

  “What did Parker do after Jackson was murdered?”

  “What could he do?

  “Did Jackson give Parker anything before he was released on bail?”

  “Not that I know of. From what I hear, Parker expected the U.S. Attorney in Miami to take over the Shephard drug case, so he hasn’t pushed the investigation.”

  “Is that the only reason he was laying off Shepard’s case?”

  “I don’t know. Should there be others?”

  “Maybe,” White said. “You’ll let me know if you hear anything.”

  “As long as you keep buying the beers, you’ll be my first call.”

  29.

  White and Leslie were wakened by the ringing of the telephone. Leslie rolled over and groped for the receiver. Horse greeted her with his usual, “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,”

  “Same old stuff,” Leslie said in a bored voice, hoping to get a rise out of White.

  White ignored her.

  “Lucius is about to get lucky,” she said to Horse. “He’ll call you when we’re through. That should be in about an hour.”

  The quality of the relationship Leslie and White shared was no secre
t, certainly not from Horse. Leslie enjoyed taking every opportunity to stimulate some kind of response from Horse. Horse had learned to return her teasing in-kind. “So you finally surrendered.”

  Leslie continued the game. “I felt sorry for him. All that whining and begging. It was pitiful.”

  “Jesus, Leslie.” White laughed and shook his head as he took the receiver. “What’s up, Horse?”

  “I may have a lead on our friend with the blue Porsche.”

  White sat up abruptly. “What do you have?”

  “I just got a call from a guy I know out in Dunbar.”

  “Where you can buy drugs on any street corner.”

  “What can I say. Where else should I look for someone who can help our case?”

  “I suppose you’re right. What does he have?”

  “He heard about our case and said he might have something useful.”

  “Like what?”

  “He didn’t say. He wanted to talk to us in person.”

  “When?”

  “I told him we’d meet him at ten o’clock.”

  White rolled over and retrieved his watch from the nightstand beside his bed. “It’s already eight.”

  “Nice to know you can still tell time.”

  “I’ll ignore that. Where does he want to meet?”

  “At the T&A down on the beach.”

  “Why there?” The T&A was better known as a place for viewing skimpily clad women, and where, in the wee hours of the morning, female companionship can be purchased by the hour. It wasn’t known as a place where money was exchanged for drugs.

  “It’s outside his neighborhood. He’d rather not be seen talking to us.”

  #

  The T&A had been a landmark on Fort Myers Beach for decades. In 1984, George Blake, USMC, retired, fled to Florida, intent on fulfilling his lifelong dream of having a place where he and like-minded veterans could congregate and swap lies. Taken by the beautiful teal blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the clear azure skies overhead, George’s wife had insisted on naming their little corner of the world the Teal and Azure Tavern.

  True to George’s dream, the little tavern had become a home away from home for the retired military population of Southwest Florida and, in time, it became a favorite spot to see and be seen. The T&A, as the tavern quickly came to be known, grew in popularity. By the early 1990s, the T&A had become the place for the thong bikini crowd, and the tavern’s nickname took on a new, but wholly accurate, meaning.