The Dollar-a-Year Detective

by William Wells

  “I feel secure in my condo and office, so how about if you just attend public events with me?”

  “That’s not the best way to protect someone, but if that’s how you want to play it, we can try that for a while.”

  “Done and done,” he says.

  Porter has no more public appearances for the day. I flop onto the bed, watching cable news for a while before being put to sleep by more blah-blah-blah about presidential politics. I’ve already decided that my vote will be “None of the above.”

  When I wake up, it’s dinnertime. I go to the lobby and ask Lisa at the front desk where I can find a sports bar, telling her she made an excellent lunch recommendation. I don’t say a “good” sports bar, because, in my experience, there is no such thing as a bad one.

  She says that the best are to be found near the Florida State University campus, which makes sense, because Florida State is a big-time football school. She names several, all on or near West Tennessee Street.

  “Do you have a favorite?” I ask her.

  “I’m a Florida State student, so I know them all. Depends on what you’re looking for. One has the best burgers, another the best wings, another the best happy hour.” She looks at me and smiles. “And one is best for picking up girls. Or, in my case, guys.”

  “They all sound good, but for tonight I’ll go for the burgers.”

  She gives me directions to The Seminole.

  I sit at the bar eating a Tomahawk burger, which is a half-pound patty made of ground short rib and sirloin with cheese, mushrooms, onion rings, and a fried egg on top. A work of art. It has always been my philosophy that, if a meteor landed on my head, would I want my last meal to have been a small kale salad with the dressing on the side? No siree.

  I ask the bartender if he can find a baseball game on one of the many TVs over and around the bar. He looks to be of college age.

  “Sure,” he says. “We’ve got satellite with the MLB package.”

  He picks up a remote, scrolls through a menu, and soon I am watching Cubs’ pitcher Jake Arrieta have his way with the opposing lineup.

  “Thanks,” I tell the bartender. “Are you a Florida State student?”

  “Yeah. I bartend and drive for Uber. If I played football, I wouldn’t have to work for spending money.”

  I know what he means. He needs a job, just like Lisa at the hotel. Players at Division One schools like Florida State have to work hard on the field, but generally not off it. Around the country, there’ve been scandals involving alumni boosters giving star players gifts and no-work jobs. Some police forces, it is alleged, give the players preferential treatment when laws are broken. And the old joke is that football and basketball players in the marquee sports can take courses like “Underwater Basket Weaving” that are not, shall we say, especially rigorous. To me, though, weaving a basket underwater doesn’t seem very easy, unless scuba gear is involved. Balancing all that is the fact that Division One colleges and universities make millions of dollars each year from their athletic programs. Rock-star football coaches are paid substantially more than college presidents. Some people, including me, think that the athletes should get a cut.

  I return to the hotel before the game ends. I’ll admit that baseball games do go long, an issue that the league is beginning to address by suggesting that maybe a batter doesn’t need to call time out to unstrap and restrap his gloves more than three times between each pitch. Purists say leave our national pastime alone. That isn’t as heated a debate as those concerning the Second Amendment or Roe v. Wade but, among a certain segment of the population, it matters.

  24.

  The Man with Two Badges

  The next morning, I’m in the Courtyard lobby enjoying a complimentary breakfast and reading the sports section of the Tallahassee Democrat, a name which makes me question the impartiality of the state capital’s daily newspaper.

  I suggested to Mikanopy that we meet at noon at the Midtown Caboose. “Excellent choice,” he said. “I see you’re learning the territory.”

  I get to the restaurant first, find a booth beside the windows, and order a coffee. Mikanopy arrives fifteen minutes later, spots me, and slides into the booth.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Had a problem this morning that ran long.”

  The waitress comes over with menus and coffee. We scan the menus and order. When I’d called him, I’d told him about my cover story and asked for his help. “Have you thought about my plan?” I ask him. “To pose as a member of your force?”

  He reaches into his jacket pocket and comes out with a badge, which he slides across the table to me, and says, in a mock-serious tone of voice, “Do you solemnly swear to do whatever the fuck it is you have in mind as a member of the Tallahassee Capitol Police force?”

  “I do,” I answer, and slip the badge into my pants pocket.

  He looks at me and scratches his chin. “I hear you’re a stand-up guy so don’t make me sorry about this.”

  “You hear from who?”

  “From Sam Long Tree, for one. And I met Cubby Cullen at a police chief’s conference in Orlando a few years ago. I called him yesterday. He said you’re worth every dollar he’s paying you.”

  As we eat, I give him more details about my theory of the case and what I’m doing with Lance Porter.

  Mikanopy asks, “How much do you know about Porter?”

  “Not all that much. Just his basic résumé. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. Just good to know who the players are in a game where shots are being fired.”

  I get the idea that Mikanopy has some sort of suspicion about Porter but, for some reason, doesn’t want to tell me about it, at least not yet.

  25.

  Stay Away from Windows

  Police work, like combat, is mostly boring. There are long periods of mundane, routine tasks, punctuated with interludes of frantic, adrenaline-pumping action and danger. But mostly boredom. As a cop, stakeouts are the worst. You wait and watch for hours and days at a time, drinking too much coffee, fighting to stay focused as you sit in your car or keep watch out a window. Same deal with body guarding, I find out.

  For the next three days Rep. Lance Porter has only two public events. A group of Cub Scouts and their adult leaders from a pack in Fort Myers stops by his office for handshakes and photos as part of a capital tour, and he (and I) attend a fund-raising dinner hosted by the Leon County Democratic Club where the only credible threat is the meal which involves some sort of overcooked brown meat.

  I decide to give it three more days before heading back to Fort Myers Beach. I’m in my hotel room at nine P.M. watching The Bachelor and trying to figure out why it’s one of Marisa’s favorite shows when I get a call from Mikanopy.

  “There’s been a shooting at Lance Porter’s house,” Mikanopy informs me. “He wasn’t hit. I’m on my way to there. Come if you want.”

  “I will. What’s the address?”

  He gives it to me. I flip off the TV before the bachelor makes his choice (I favored the brunette with a journalism degree from Columbia, but he went for the blonde aspiring actress) and drive to Porter’s house.

  I’m there in ten minutes. It’s a tidy yellow-stucco bungalow in a nice residential neighborhood. I park on the street. A Tallahassee PD cruiser and a Capitol Police SUV are in the driveway. I walk to the front porch, try the door, which is unlocked, and go in. Porter, Mikanopy, and a beefy uniformed policeman are standing in the living room. The cop wears sergeant’s stripes; his nameplate says he’s named Jacoby.

  Sergeant Jacoby reflexively puts his hand on his holstered pistol and asks, “And who the fuck’re you?”

  “It’s okay, Sergeant, he’s my bodyguard,” Porter tells him.

  Jacoby looks me over and says, “It was my impression that bodyguards are supposed to guard the body while it’s still alive.”

  He has a point. The curtains are open on the front plate-glass window. There is a small bullet hole in it. The opposite plaster wall has a chu
nk out of it.

  “His fee is higher if his client doesn’t get offed,” Mikanopy says with a grin.

  “So what happened?” I ask the group.

  “I was in my office at the back of the house doing some paperwork when I heard a noise,” Porter explains. “I came in here and saw the hole in the window and the chip in the wall and called 911. I didn’t hear a gunshot.”

  Jacoby takes a small plastic evidence bag out of his pants pocket. It contains a metal fragment. “Dug this out of the wall,” he says. “Small caliber slug, probably a .22.”

  I wonder why Porter didn’t call me. He apparently guesses that and says, “I wasn’t hurt so I planned to tell you about this in the morning.”

  “We always notify the Capitol Police when a state government official is involved in an incident,” Jacoby tells me. He looks at Porter: “You need to come to headquarters tomorrow to talk about who might have done this and why you feel it necessary to employ a so-called bodyguard.”

  Ouch.

  When Sergeant Jacoby departs, Porter offers Mikanopy and me a beverage. Mikanopy asks for a beer and I take coffee. Porter pours vodka on ice for himself. We sit in the living room sipping our drinks. I realize that I know nothing about Porter’s private life other than that he’d been an Army Ranger and served in government staff jobs. There are no photographs in the living room to indicate if he’s married or has children. Maybe there are photos like that in his study.

  “Seems odd,” Mikanopy comments. “A shot through the window with no target in sight. More like a warning than an assassination attempt.”

  He’s right. That wasn’t the MO of the killer I’m chasing.

  “Maybe this was just a warning,” Porter tells us. “After the bill is passed, which it will be, there’ll be no reason for anyone to want me out of the way.”

  True. And I will be left without a plan to catch the killer of the Hendersons and Russell Tolliver.

  “Until the vote,” I tell Porter, “stay away from windows.”

  26.

  Oscar’s Chicken

  Porter scheduled one more public event before the big vote. He agreed to be the keynote speaker at the annual awards dinner of Citizens for a Sane Environment, Marion Henderson’s organization, at the Hyatt Place hotel in Fort Myers. Tom Henderson, Larry’s brother, would be there with his wife, Lynette, and Larry and Marion’s children, Nathan and Elise, to see the group’s new president present a special award to Marion, posthumously.

  The hotel ballroom is crowded with about one hundred attendees when Marisa and I arrive. She regularly makes donations to the group, so she was invited to attend.

  We get stick-on name tags at the check-in desk and find our assigned table, number three, which is near the dais where Porter will be sitting. Marisa is dolled up in a black dress, showing some of her front and a lot of her back, and she looks terrific. I asked her if the shoulder holster holding my S&W under my jacket makes me look fat. She said it’s not the gun. Note to self: either lose some weight or don’t ask her that.

  As the salads are being served a woman seated beside Porter stands, approaches the podium, taps on the microphone, causing a loud squelch (you’d think speakers would learn not to do that), and says, “Good evening. I’m Leticia Baker, president of Citizens for a Sane Environment. I’m filling the unexpired term of Marion Henderson and I want to say to her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Tom and Lynette, and to Larry and Marion’s wonderful children, Nathan and Elise, all of whom are with us tonight, thank you for coming and we are all very, very sorry for your loss. Everyone who knew Larry and Marion liked and respected them and we grieve at their untimely passing. Now please enjoy your meals and then we’ll hear from our guest of honor, State Rep. Lance Porter.”

  We’ve been offered a choice of chicken Oscar or nothing at all. I go with the chicken.

  The dinner is by invitation only, but a shooter could pose as a hotel staff member. As the dinner progresses, I try to keep an eye on the servers. The only lethal weapon they’re packing, as far as I can tell, is the chicken. As dessert is being served (a slice of something that resembles cheesecake but tastes like the cardboard box it came in), Leticia Baker rises to introduce Porter. She reads through his résumé and then he comes to the podium, getting hearty applause.

  Porter speaks for twenty minutes, talking about the important work of Citizens for a Sane Environment in safeguarding our precious natural resources so that we can pass on a nation that is less toxic than China to future generations. I hope that the Hyatt Place chef’s recipe for chicken Oscar will not be passed on to future generations.

  Toward the end of his remarks, Porter says, “You all know that House resolution 0022, regarding oil and gas drilling in the gulf, is coming up for a vote. I will be voting a resounding no!”

  He pauses for more applause and gets it. “It appears at this point that the bill will pass the House and the Senate and that Governor Anderson will sign it. But do not despair. We will go on fighting the good fight together, now and in the future. Our cause is just, and we will, in the end, prevail!”

  As he is getting a standing ovation, Marisa tells me, “Your pal has all the moves. Too bad he can’t get honest work.”

  Leticia calls what is left of the Henderson family to the dais to present Marion’s special award to her children, who are crying. If I needed any extra incentive to catch her killer, which I don’t, that would have been it.

  27.

  Laws and Sausages

  Otto von Bismarck nailed it when he said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Actually I have seen sausages being made, at the Vienna Beef factory in Chicago, and that was a whole lot more palatable than the spectacle unfolding in the chamber of the Florida House of Representatives.

  I’m seated in the visitors’ gallery watching the drilling bill being debated before the vote. I’m there not so much to bodyguard, security to get into the room is tight, but to bring a measure of closure to that phase of my homicide investigation. Problem is that there is, at this point, no next phase.

  Republicans control the House and Senate and the governor’s office. Porter, like his former boss, is a Democrat.

  Rep. Arthur Wainwright is the standard bearer for the pro-bill forces. He and his Republican colleagues stand to speak about all of the positive things that will accrue to the state by allowing the close-in drilling, mainly revenue and jobs. My man, Rep. Lance Porter, and his fellow Democrats, delineate the negative impact the bill will have, including pollution of the gulf from the inevitable oil spills and potential earthquakes and groundwater contamination resulting from fracking.

  None of that blather is necessary because the issue already has been decided. Impassioned legislative speeches persuade no one. That is all for show, especially when a cable channel televises them. Porter told me that morning that the House head count breaks along party lines, eighty-one to thirty-nine in favor of the bill, and twenty-six to fourteen in the Senate. Governor Lucas Anderson has said he’ll sign the bill when (not if) it passes.

  When all the verbal diarrhea has run its course, that is in fact the result of the House vote. When the session ends I meet Porter for lunch at Sharkey’s Capitol Café in the Capitol Building. Porter doesn’t seem particularly upset by the defeat. I suppose that is because he’s known the outcome ever since the bill was introduced.

  “Now that your work here is done, what will you do next?” he asks me.

  “I guess I’ll see if the Fort Myers Beach Police Department has a cold-case file and add my notes to it.”

  Fort Myers Beach PD does have a cold-case file. The only cases in it involve graffiti being spray painted on an outer wall of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, a series of bicycle thefts, and five home burglaries six years ago, the prime suspects being a band of thieves from Miami who were arrested for similar break-ins in Naples, Orlando, and Jacksonville but who didn’t cop to the Fort Myers Beach jobs, saying it must have been copyca
ts.

  Now the file contains my three murders.

  I sit in a guest chair in Cubby’s office and put my detective’s badge on his desk, saying, “I’m oh-for-one for your department, Cubby.”

  “Tell you what, Jack. Keep the badge and I’ll give you something easy next,” he tells me. “Maybe a convenience-store stickup where we’ve got the guy on a security camera tape, and a bystander got his car license plate number. Solve that one and you’re batting .500. That’s better than the top ten hitters in the Hall of Fame, who I bet you can name.”

  “Ty Cobb hit .366 lifetime,” I respond. “Rogers Hornsby was .358; Shoeless Joe Jackson, .356; Lefty O’Doul, .349; and Ed Delahanty, .346. I could go on. My dad could name the top fifty. My brother, Joe, and I were working our way there when Dad died, and then Joe died, and I stopped at twenty.”

  He slides the badge toward me and says, “This will get you out of speeding tickets. We call the color of your Vette ‘arrest-me red.’”

  I know that Cubby really wants me to keep the badge so I’ll be on call for future investigations—why, I can’t say, given my performance. I pick it up and put it back into my pocket. Easier than arguing with him. As I stand to leave he takes his wallet out of a desk drawer, extracts a dollar, and hands it to me.

  “We’ll mail you a W-2 form. The federal government should leave you with about eighty-nine cents.”

  Fortunately there is no state income tax in Florida. I decide not to submit an expense report for my meals, mileage, and hotel bills—at least not until the killer is brought to justice. At this point, it looks like I’ll have to eat those costs.

  28.

  Red Cloud Speaks

  But my next case is not as easy as Cubby Cullen’s hypothetical about a convenience store robbery.

  I return to my usual routine: keeping busy at the Parrot, looking over Bill’s latest additions to the manuscript, trying to watch my weight decline instead of increase by forgoing sugary snacks and stepping up my workouts, and enjoying Marisa’s company, and Joe’s.