The Orchid Keeper: A Sean O'Brien Novel

by Tom Lowe

  Vera looked at me and asked, “Are you suggesting that evidence might have been planted?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

  Wynona’s phone buzzed. She read the text and said, “It’s from Detective Gilson. He believes the suspect might make a full confession. He’s asking me to come to the sheriff’s department.”

  “You can follow me,” said Vera.

  “Let’s do it, but since we’re only a little more than a football field away from where Thaxton was shot, I’d like to see the area before we leave.”

  It took us less than five minutes to walk from the fallen cypress tree to the place deputies had found Thaxton’s backpack and drone controller. “Right there,” said Vera, pointing to the tall strand of Everglades palms and palmettos. “That’s where we found it. The blood sample was lifted from the soil. The controller was less than three feet from his backpack. We managed to follow a few visible tracks in the soil, and then they vanished as if the victim was mysteriously carried out of the area.” She looked at Wynona. “Later, the body is found across the border on Seminole reservation land. Considering his condition, it’s remarkable he made it that far.”

  I stared back at the fallen cypress tree in the expanse of glades, the big tree like a twig in the distance. I felt a wind moving across the land, sawgrass just bobbing in the breeze. I looked up at the tops of the palms and tall pine trees, their branches swaying in the gusts. I wondered how much higher above the trees had Joe Thaxton operated his drone. When he dropped the controller, did the drone come crashing down in the dark waters of the swamps? Or did it fly until its batteries died … soaring away … maybe a mile before coming down? Before it flew into the bayous, what had Joe Thaxton seen through the drone’s single eye over the Everglades?

  I wanted to look at my phone, but I knew Joe Billie hadn’t called.

  Not yet.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Wynona and I waited less than five minutes in the lobby of the sheriff’s office before Cory Gilson arrived. Bone white tile covered the floor of the large reception area. Two ceiling fans. One not turning, the single strand of a spider’s web slung between two blades. A dozen hard plastic chairs. A woman and teenager sat in two of the chairs. Neither talking. There was a framed picture of the sheriff and the current governor on the wall behind a receptionist who answered one call after the other.

  Wynona said, “It’ll be interesting to watch the questioning of this guy, Craig Moffett. Was he simply an indifferent hunter, a man who throws his trash where he hunts … or is he too, a victim?”

  “Let’s see what he has to say. Do you plan to question him?”

  “Yes. Jurisdiction comes with the territory, and since the body was found on the rez, I need to lead this dance. I’m just hoping Moffett doesn’t ask for a lawyer before the questions get rather personal.”

  Cory Gilson came through one of the doors. He grinned at me. “Sean O’Brien … it’s good to see you.” He walked over and gave me a hardy handshake with a quick pat on the back. He looked at Wynona. “You come with a formidable partner.”

  Wynona smiled. “Seminole PD doesn’t hire consultants. Sean and I are friends. I asked him to join me as we had a look around the glades. Sean knew the vic.”

  I said, “Thaxton and his wife wanted to hire me to look into the threats and property destruction as the campaign became more elevated. I turned them down.”

  Gilson nodded. “I know you, Sean. Looks like you regret that decision, but what the hell could you or anybody do at that point?” He paused, glancing through the windows at the parking lot, the sun’s heat shimmering off the cars, chrome winking in the light. “I’m not sure Thaxton’s death grew from phone threats or some punk twisting the candidate’s windshield wipers in knots.”

  “Let’s see where the chips fall,” Wynona said.

  “We can pretty much put Craig Moffett smack dab in the middle of where the shot was fired. Considering his record as a habitual felon, he could be sent away for years on manslaughter charges. Before he can start spinning lies and bogus alibis, we just need to let him know we have hard, physical evidence that puts him there. Lab says his Remington rifle was recently fired. I wish to God we could locate the round that went through Thaxton. I’d bet the ranch it would match the rounds we found in Moffett’s hunting knapsack next to the rifle in his closet.”

  “Where is Moffett?” Wynona asked.

  “Sippin’ coffee in interrogation room number three. We have two other lowlifes in rooms one and two. People doing bad shit to pay the pushers selling opioids. One dude in there is the biggest meth dealer in Southwest Florida. Guy reminds me of the actor in that old TV show Breaking Bad. But rather than cook the stuff from a RV in the desert, he cooks it on a houseboat in the backwater bays between Everglades City and Chokoloskee. He used to be a crabber. But that didn’t pay as well. I don’t know about you, Wynona, on the Seminole reservation, but we’re backlogged in criminal activity here. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings in the least if I could just put Moffett in the back of a deputy’s car and ship him to you.”

  “He lives in Collier County. You found him. Let’s both go have a chat with him.”

  Gilson nodded. “Let’s get at it.” He turned to me. “Sean, I’ll take you to the observation area. Y’all come on back. Follow me. Let the good times roll.” He looked over my shoulder, his eyes following movement. “The news crews are showing up in the parking lot. I’m sure by now they’ve heard about us picking up Craig Moffett. At this point, I have nothing to say. This is gonna be one damn high-profile case.”

  • • •

  I stood behind the one-way glass and watched as Cory Gilson and Wynona took seats on the opposite side of the table where Craig Moffett sat. I studied Moffett as he watched them. He leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his broad chest. His face bloated. Cheeks flushed. Eyes veiled. Tats on his arms and the left side of his neck. If he were playing poker, his bluff was to look disinterested and then offended. His tell was in the body language. A twitch he couldn’t hide, as if people had the nerve to challenge his innocence. There was a sullen swagger to the way he moved and adjusted his body in the chair. I could tell he’d been here and done this … many times. He harbored some of the irritated unconscious movements and gestures I’ve often seen in repeat offenders—a petulance—a moral superiority. He would become accusatory if pushed in a corner here. In a bar, he’d come in swinging.

  Gilson said, “Craig, you and I have already met. This is Detective Wynona Osceola. Before we get started, can we get you something to drink? Coffee? A Coke? Water maybe?”

  He shook his head. “Naw, I don’t plan to be here that long. Y’all got nothin’ on me, and you know it. Way I figure is on account of all the publicity and whatnot, you’re in a hurry to pin this on somebody. That somebody won’t be me. You got that?”

  Neither Cory nor Wynona responded quickly to Moffett’s jab. Cory said, “If you’re right, you have nothing to worry about, okay?”

  “I ain’t worried.”

  Cory leaned forward, placing both hands, palms down, on the table. “Well, if you’re not worried, then you ought to be concerned. And I’ll tell you why, Craig. We have your fingerprints on a food wrapper you dropped at your hunting spot. We have your cigar, too. The thing is oozing with your DNA. We have the butt from a marijuana cigarette. It’s got your kiss on it too. We have your hunter’s makeup stick. Again, skin cells from your face and hands are all over that. We know your rifle has been fired in the last forty-eight hours. It all puts you directly at the murder scene—the murder of a beloved and highly respected man well-known across Florida. Imagine trying to find an impartial jury. You can’t win against that kind of physical and forensic evidence. But you do have choices. The question is … are you smart enough to make the right one”

  Moffett said nothing, his thoughts racing. He made a dry swallow, tried to clear his throat. “That’s ‘cause I went huntin’. That’s what you do when you’r
e huntin,’ okay?”

  Cory half smiled. “I thought you told me a friend brought you that deer, correct?”

  “I didn’t say I shot a deer. I said I went huntin’. There’s a difference. Missed a couple shots. Deer run off in the brush.”

  “I’d say there’s a big difference in hunting a deer compared to hunting a man.”

  “I told you … I didn’t kill anybody out there. I didn’t even see anybody, so how in the hell could I kill ‘em?”

  “You’re a convicted felon with a rifle, and you are a hired gun. Maybe you smoked some weed to take the edge off.”

  “No! That’s bull shit, man. You’re makin’ stuff up. You mind if I have some water?”

  Wynona said, “Of course not. I’ll get some for you.” She stood, glancing back at the one-way glass. I could tell she wanted to speak with me.

  Cory leaned forward on the table top, looking Moffett in the eye. “Physical evidence puts you in the line of sight from bullet to impact. You say you were just hunting deer, but now, Craig, you look like the proverbial deer in the headlights because you got caught. And you know what you did.”

  SIXTY-SIX

  I walked from the observation area to a hallway, Wynona coming out of the interrogation room at the same time. She looked at me and said, “Moffett’s no Boy Scout by any stretch of the imagination. He’s got an attitude on his face and ink in all the wrong places. Maybe the teardrop tat in the corner of his left eye, which doesn’t mean he killed a man, was inked there to better survive in prison. Sort of a visible bluff for survival. Is he capable of premediated murder? Probably. Did he shoot and kill Joe Thaxton? Was he a gun for hire? I’m not convinced. Was it an accident? I’m not convinced of that either. I do know that Cory is going to press that direction.”

  “No doubt.”

  “What would you do in there, Sean? Do the good-cop-bad-cop grilling or play a different hand?”

  “I can only advise you to truly play it by ear. You’ve got great instincts. If you feel the interview veering off the tracks, change things up. Change direction. It’s not the question or intent to get Moffett to admit to manslaughter … it’s to assess his culpability or lack of it as a hired assassin.”

  “Yes, we have a lot of forensic evidence placing him in the shooter’s spot and perspective. With the rifle he has, he could have taken a few shots at Thaxton, only one had to connect in the vital areas. What bothers me is the other physical evidence.”

  “You mean the plaster tire prints?”

  “Yes. That’s one component. We know they don’t match the tires on Moffett’s truck. The SUV that Chester Miller saw certainly wasn’t a truck and the guy driving it definitely wasn’t Moffett. So, who was he? Why was he out there? Was he working with Moffett … or alone?” She looked around the hallway. “I offered to get water, and I’m not sure where to find it.”

  “There’s a break room the first door on the left. I saw water bottles in there.”

  “Thanks.” She headed that way, stopped and turned back toward me. “I told Cory before we went in there that, unless we get a real confession for murder, I might not settle for manslaughter if the chips just don’t stack up right.”

  “I have no doubt you’ll do what you think is right. Cory may not agree with you, but at the end of the day, the body was found on the rez and that trumps every card in the judicial deck.”

  She smiled. “Why do I like you so much?”

  “I have no idea.” I smiled and walked back to the observation room.

  • • •

  Cory interlocked his fingers together, looked at his hands and then up at Moffett. “Shooting a rifle under the influence of pot can cause problems. You shot at a deer and missed. Maybe that’s the way it went down. But the fact is, you were so far away from what you thought was a deer, your bullet went through a man. That doesn’t mean it was intentional or murder. Accidents happen. Craig, you wouldn’t be the first hunter that accidently shot and killed someone in the woods. And, unfortunately, you won’t be the last. Sometimes bad stuff happens.”

  “I’m tired of it happening to me. I took a couple of shots out there. But I sure as hell wasn’t aiming for anything walkin’ on two legs. How many times do I gotta tell y’all that, huh?”

  Wynona glanced at Gilson and then at Moffett. She said, “Mr. Moffett, let me remind you that you are a convicted felon. You have no legal right to own that rifle. You had no legal right to be out there hunting. The rifle you used has a scope on it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Even under the influence of marijuana, using a scope before taking the shot, you should be able to see whether you’re shooting at a deer or a man. The fact is, you chose to shoot at a man. And you killed him. We have the physical evidence, and we have the body. What we don’t know is who hired you.” She leaned forward. “Here’s the deal, you tell us who hired you, and we’ll reduce charges. Yes, you’ll be back in Raiford, but you can keep off death row if you tell us who hired and sent you into the glades to kill Joe Thaxton. Otherwise, Detective Gilson and I will be in the front row when they pump the chemicals into your body, and you start your final convulsing on earth.”

  Moffett looked as if he might come across the table at Wynona. Even from behind the one-way glass, I could see a blood vein pulse on the side of his thick neck. His mouth turned down on both corners. He looked across the room at the mirrored glass, as if he were trying to look through the glass. He shifted his eyes back to Wynona. “Lady, you may have my cigar and whatnot out there, but you don’t have a bullet from my rifle in the dead guy ‘cause it wasn’t me that shot him. Why the hell would I kill some dude in the glades that I don’t know. I hear he was a politician. I couldn’t give a shit about politics, or anybody else for that matter.”

  “I’ll tell you why you could shoot him,” Cory said. “Because somebody paid you money to do it. Problem is, you don’t know what to do with the dough. You were probably paid in cash. You’re afraid to put it in your bank … we checked. So, you have to stash it ‘til the heat cools down. Did you bury it in the yard behind your trailer? Eventually, you’ll spend most of it on booze, pills, gambling, and prostitutes. It’s what you do, Craig. You cycle in and out of society, taking. Never giving. You always have … always will.”

  “You don’t know shit.”

  “I know this … and you’d better listen carefully because I’m not gonna repeat it. You’re about to be charged for first-degree murder in the premeditated and planned death of Joe Thaxton. For you, that’s a fast-track to death row, because the guy who most people will vote in to be the next governor of Florida is Hal Duncan—a real good friend of Joe Thaxton’s. And, if Duncan becomes governor, you can bet your ass he’ll do everything in his power to move you to the front of the line on death row. Forget appeals to any state court, and you can damn sure forget a stay of execution at the eleventh hour from the governor. That’s what you’re up against, Craig. The murder of a well-known and well-liked man running for office to make a difference … and you killed him.”

  “Man, you got this all wrong. I rode to my favorite hunting area in Big Cypress on my ATV, and I didn’t see a soul.”

  Cory shook his head in disagreement. “Now, you can tell us who hired you, that’s the guy we want. Detective Osceola and I can talk with the prosecutor … work out a deal to keep you off death row. It’s up to you. But you gotta talk to us. You gotta work with us.”

  Moffett said nothing. He looked down at his big hands on the table, his jawline hard as granite, deep-set eyes veiled. He released a chest full of air. “Here’s the deal, okay? Nobody hired me to do nothin.’ At this point, I wish they did. I’d rather have them take most of the heat than me. Fact is, yes, I’m a convicted felon. Yes, I didn’t have a license to hunt. But it’s one of my passions … one of the things that keeps my head on straight. I’ll admit that I might have accidently shot and killed the dude. But it was no damn murder. I never really saw him. It was getting late
, near sunset. Lots of deep shadows. I took a long shot at what I thought was a boar or maybe a deer. I fired the round knowing that I’d most likely not hit the animal. I was just tired and bored. A little high. So, I made a stupid mistake. So, what? But I sure as shit didn’t murder anybody.”

  Cory glanced over at Wynona and said, “With your record, it’s going to be very doubtful that you or your public defender will ever convince a jury anywhere in Florida of that. There’s way too much forensic and physical evidence … and pal, it all points directly to you.”

  Moffett folded his heavy arms across his chest. “You can’t scare me.”

  Wynona said, “We’re not trying to, the evidence will do that. But only if you have a conscience. Craig, we know that Joe Thaxton was making a lot of enemies among the rich and powerful, because that’s who he was taking on in his election campaign. You see, he was doing the reverse of what most people running for office do … he was turning his back on the lobbyists hired by the rich and powerful. Thaxton was turning his back on them so he could turn toward and unite the people—the voters, to support the current laws and make sweeping changes in Florida’s environmental laws that would cost some of these people big money. So, whoever hired you is going to discard you like the garbage he thinks you are. You’re going to be just another bit player in their role to remain superior to you and millions like you. This is your chance … your opportunity to turn the tables. Who solicited your services? We need a name, and you won’t face the death penalty.”

  He slammed his right fist down on the table, the force almost splintering the inch-thick particle board surface. “Stop! Okay? Y’all gotta believe me. I didn’t take money from anybody ‘cause I didn’t kill the dude … at least not on purpose like a murder. Man, if anything … it was an accident … a stupid accident.”

  “So,” fired Cory, “you’d be willing to face manslaughter charges to put this thing to bed as opposed to possibly face the death penalty, correct?”