Fatal Decree

by H. Terrell Griffin

  He was sweating now, but he was about done. He took several pictures of the woman, taking the chance that there was no one about to see the flash. He’d use the photographs later in the privacy of his bedroom to help win the release of the devils that built in him until he’d found another victim. He’d been taught well. He smiled, pulled the phone from his pocket and called Steiffel to come get him. He looked again at the dead woman, smiled, repacked his gear, and walked back to the parking lot that abutted the entrance to Leffis Key.

  Steiffel arrived a few minutes later. They drove to the strip mall where Jeff had left his Mercedes. Steiffel followed him back to Longboat Key and to a beachfront condominium complex. Jeff parked his car and the two of them drove to a large house that fronted Anna Maria Sound just south of Palma Sola Bay where a large Fountain go-fast boat perched on a lift. Jeff had watched the place for two days and was pretty sure nobody was home. They parked in the back of the overflow lot of the Seafood Shack, a popular restaurant a few doors south of the house. The car was invisible from the street, hidden in the shadows thrown by the trees that bordered the back of the lot. It was after midnight and the restaurant was closed and dark.

  Jeff sat in the car and watched Steiffel walk down the street and around to the back of the house. He powered up the electric lift motor and slowly lowered the boat into the water. When Jeff heard the boat coming toward him, idling, its engines burbling quietly, he walked across the street to the restaurant and out to the dock. The boat eased against the pier and Jeff stepped aboard.

  Dawn was two hours away, and they didn’t have to be in place until just before sunup. They motored at idle speed to the middle of the bay and let the boat drift as they drank coffee from a thermos and talked of their days in prison.

  They had known each other for years but had formed none of the emotional attachments that friends usually do. They were not friends and if anyone had ever asked either of them about other friends, they would have been stumped. They did not understand the concept. There were just people, some weak, some strong, and they usually figured out their place in the pecking order. The strong ruled and the weak followed orders. Jeff figured he was one of the strong ones.

  Just before daybreak, they moved the boat at idle speed to the viewing platform in the little cove. They went in slowly and quietly, not wanting to disturb the boats at anchor and call attention to themselves. They shut down the engines and sat without talking, waiting for someone to find the body and summon the police. Jeff knew that the detective bitch would be among the first on the scene.

  When they heard the first police siren coming from the direction of the little town of Bradenton Beach, they left the boat and moved to the place they had decided would give them the best shot. They hid in the undergrowth and watched the police gather. The woman detective arrived and was talking to a policeman who seemed to be in charge. There was no clear shot. Then two men in civilian clothes arrived and the woman went to talk to them.

  Jeff did not plan to show himself, but he carried an Uzi submachine gun, ready to provide covering fire if needed. Steiffel had a rifle with a scope. He was peering into the scope trying to gauge the shot that would take out the detective. “Now,” he whispered and squeezed the trigger. Jeff saw a man in uniform look at them, take a step and yell at the same moment the shot was fired. Then the cop was down. The step he’d taken put him between the detective and the sniper and he’d taken the bullet.

  The cops hit the ground and began returning fire. Jeff told Steiffel to get to the boat and then sprayed the crowd with the Uzi. He wasn’t trying to kill anybody, just keep them down. He wasn’t afraid that Steiffel would leave him, because the man knew his life depended on Jeff getting back to make the calls he had to make. The calls that would make Steiffel very rich.

  Jeff sprayed the cops twice and then ran for the boat and clambered aboard. Steiffel was at the helm and immediately pulled away from the little viewing platform and headed for the open sea. They ran west through Longboat Pass, staying within the marked channel, and turned southwest, travelling at eighty miles per hour according to the speedometer in the dash. The depth sounder was reading twenty-five feet when Jeff told Steiffel to come down to idle speed.

  The boat was rocking in its own wake as Jeff got out of his seat. “Get the guns,” he said. “I want them overboard. Nobody will find them out here.”

  Steiffel retrieved the two weapons and stood at the gunwale to drop them overboard. Jeff pulled a nine-millimeter pistol from his pocket and shot Steiffel in the back of the head, grabbing him by the belt before he had a chance to fall overboard. The spray from the bullet exiting the front of Steiffel’s head went into the Gulf, leaving only a few droplets on the boat.

  Jeff let the body fall so that it was half in the boat and half out, the blood from the head wound draining into the water. He’d clean the little that got on the boat as soon as the body was gone. He didn’t plan to leave any DNA evidence to be found by the police when they located the boat.

  Jeff stripped and took a set of different clothes from a canvas bag, replacing them with what he had worn that morning. He tied the bag securely to the legs of the body hanging over the gunwale, and then secured an anchor to the body with a length of chain he’d brought for this purpose. He used a towel that had been in the clothes bag to wipe down the boat, clearing all fingerprints and the spots of blood on the gunwale. The towel went into the bag and he closed it tightly with its drawstrings. Finally, Jeff lifted the body by the legs and tumbled it into the sea. The anchor took it out of sight within seconds. Jeff shrugged and wiped his hands. “The wages of failure,” he said, quietly. “So be it. The bitch is still breathing.”

  Jeff ran the boat straight toward shore, keeping the speed at about fifty miles per hour, the craft lighter without the dead man. He was pretty far south and did not think the police would have had a chance to get assets in place to find him. He’d only left Leffis Key fifteen minutes before. As he neared the beach, he slowed, used the boat’s hydraulics to lift the engines, and drifted the bow onto the sand. He wiped down the steering wheel and throttle controls with the tail of his shirt. He threw an anchor onto the beach, hopped off the boat and secured it. To a casual observer, he was just some guy in a fancy boat coming onto the beach.

  He was now dressed in white shorts, a white golf shirt, and white running shoes. He walked across the beach to the boardwalk that crossed the dunes into the condominium property. The building was built on tall pilings with parking underneath on the ground floor. When he was in the garage and could not be seen from any of the condo units, he walked south until the garage ended, crossed onto another property and into the same first floor garage setup. He went to the Mercedes that he’d parked there four hours before, got in, and drove off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The emergency room of Blake Hospital was full of officers from Longboat Key, some in uniform and the off-duty ones in civilian clothes, a mixture of jeans, shorts, T-shirts, golf shirts, running shoes, flip-flops, and boat shoes. J.D. and I sat with Jock and Chief Bill Lester. We were all waiting for an update on Steve Carey’s condition.

  In the more than fifty years of the existence of the Town of Longboat Key, no police officer had ever been shot. I wondered if we would make another half century without more bloodshed. The world was changing, coarsening, becoming more violent, and it was only natural that some of that would bleed across the bridges onto our island paradise. Technically, Steve had been shot on Anna Maria Island, not Longboat Key, but the difference was only one of degree. Leffis Key was only a few hundred yards north of the bridge leading to Longboat Key, and Steve Carey was certainly one of us, a Longboater.

  A woman in blue scrubs came through the doors that led to the treatment rooms and walked toward us. Bill Lester stood. He was in civilian clothes. He intercepted the woman. “I’m Bill Lester,” he said. “Chief of police on Longboat Key. How’s Officer Carey?”

  “I’m Dr. Montoya,” she said. “Where is Offi
cer Carey’s family? I need to talk to them.”

  “We’re his family,” said Lester. “Talk to me.”

  She let out a breath, smiled. “Way too much testosterone in here. He’s in good shape. The bullet went through his upper arm without hitting anything important. I stitched him up and he’ll be sore for a few days, but he’ll ultimately be good as new.”

  I could see the relief written on the faces of all the men and women who had gathered in a tight circle around the chief and the doctor. Steve had been lucky, and each of the officers had spent at least a moment or two contemplating the fact that he or she could have been the one shot. And that the shot might not have missed something vital.

  “Can I see him?” asked the chief.

  “Sure,” said the doctor. “We’re going to keep him overnight to make sure an infection doesn’t set in. Go on back before we send him upstairs.”

  “I need these three with me,” the chief said, gesturing toward J.D., Jock, and me.

  The doctor nodded and led us back to a treatment room.

  Carey was sitting up in bed, his arm bandaged and in a sling. He was grinning when we walked in. “Chief, you got to start paying me hazardous-duty pay.”

  “What did you do to piss off the shooter?” asked Lester.

  Steve turned serious. “He wasn’t after me, Chief. That shot was meant for J.D.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked J.D., surprise in her voice.

  “I had just moved in front of you, between you and the shooter, when he fired. If he hadn’t winged me, I think that round would have gotten you.”

  J.D. was quiet for a moment. Then, “Were you trying to protect me, Steve?”

  “No. I saw the gunman and started moving toward him. I never thought about him shooting at you. Not until afterward, anyway. The shot came so quick after I took that step that he had to have zeroed in on you. You were the target, J.D., not me.”

  J.D. stood for another moment, mulling that over. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But you saved my butt, Steve, whether you meant to or not. I owe you big-time.”

  “Bring me a six-pack of Bud and we’ll call it even,” he said.

  That broke the icy tension that had settled over the small room. We laughed for the first time that day. “I’ll see what I can do,” J.D. said. “You get some rest. I’ll check in on you this afternoon.”

  • • •

  J.D., Jock, and I were in my Explorer headed back to Leffis Key to get J.D.’s car. “Do we know who called this in?” I asked J.D.

  “Yeah, a guy named Don Buckler.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “No. I met Don last spring. He’s from Louisville and comes to visit his daughter. He’s an artist and was out birding, planning to sketch some species they don’t have in Kentucky. He parked in the lot and walked right into the body. Called 911 and waited for the law to show up.”

  “Was he able to give you any more information than that he found the body?”

  “No. The Bradenton Beach lieutenant took a pretty detailed statement. He told me what Don had to say. I’ll get a copy of the recorded statement as soon as it’s transcribed.”

  “Is there going to be a turf war over who gets the lead on the case?” asked Jock.

  “No. I told the lieutenant about the murders in Miami and the threats to me here, so he’s happy to let Longboat run the show.”

  “Threats?” I asked. “As in more than one?”

  “Well, there was the phone call on Saturday evening when we were leaving Moore’s, then the attempt to kill me in the parking lot at the Lazy Lobster.”

  I shrugged. “I kind of figured those were one and the same. The caller trying to make good on his threat.”

  “And of course, there was the call I got last night.”

  I sat up straighter. “You got another threat?”

  “Yeah, about midnight.”

  “Same voice as at Moore’s?”

  “I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I hope you enjoyed today’s sunset, bitch. It could be your last.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “What?” I said, my voice rising. “You went to that crime scene in spite of that threat? Are you crazy?” I didn’t like her being a target and I didn’t think she was taking the threats seriously enough.

  “Calm down, Matt,” J.D. said. “I wouldn’t have gone if I’d thought somebody would try to shoot me. Last time he waited a couple of days to come after me.”

  “For some reason,” said Jock, “whoever is murdering these women has you in his sights, too. I know our working hypothesis is that the guy running the show is probably someone you put away. But we might be sniffing the wrong trail. If so, when we figure out the reason for wanting you dead, we might be able to find the bastard.”

  “None of this makes any sense to me,” J.D. said. “I was a rookie detective when the killings happened in Miami. I was just a small part of a larger task force, and we never found the killer. But if it’s not tied to those murders—and the murder weapon says it is—why is the guy after me?”

  “You’re pretty sure it’s not somebody you arrested later?” Jock asked.

  “So far, I can’t find anybody who would have been involved in any way with the Miami murders and who had some contact with me.”

  “What about the other detectives on the task force?” I asked. “Have any of them had any death threats over the years?”

  “No. I checked. The chief of detectives talked to everybody on that task force and none of them have been approached. Two of the detectives are dead, but both of them died of natural causes several years ago. My old partner couldn’t come up with anyone who we thought could be involved.”

  “Do you think the guy committing the murders here is just using the dead women as bait to get to you?” I asked.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. He could get me with a lot less trouble,” she said. “I’d be pretty easy pickings on the key most any time.”

  “Then why the dead ladies on our island?” I asked

  “I think they’re connected,” she said, “but I can’t figure out why.”

  “Maybe,” said Jock, “the guy is just as twisted as the one in Miami. Or maybe our murderer is the one from Miami who’s just been asleep for twelve years. For whatever reason.”

  “Two problems with that theory,” said J.D. “One, serial killers don’t just stop. They get too much of a rush out of the murders. Particularly the ritualistic ones like we have. Secondly, even if the guy was in prison or for some reason just decided to take a twelve-year sabbatical, why would he be after me? I can’t see where I fit into this.”

  “There’s a connection there somewhere,” I said. “We just don’t see it yet.”

  “Do you want to stay involved in this, Jock?” asked J.D. “I’m pretty sure Nell Alexander was just a random victim. No connection to your agency.”

  “Intended or not, the bastard took out one of ours. I’m in until we get him. The director said to stay as long as I need to. He’s ready to give you whatever help he can from Washington.”

  J.D. nodded. “I’ll keep you in the loop. Tell your director we appreciate his offer.”

  We pulled into the parking lot at Leffis Key. The crime-scene truck and two Bradenton Beach police cruisers were still there, parked amid several civilian cars. Perhaps twenty people dressed in shorts and casual shirts milled about on the sand parking area. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung across the entrance to the preserve, and a uniformed cop stood behind it, keeping out the curious who gather at every tragedy.

  J.D. got out as I pulled to a stop. She stood at the open door and said, “I’m going to the station. I want to get an update on what’s going on. Do you guys want to meet for lunch and let me fill you in?”

  I looked at my watch. It wasn’t quite ten, early for a day that was already long. “Dry Dock?” I asked.

  “Sure. Grab a table outs
ide. See you at noon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The sun was high and bright, but the lack of humidity and the breeze off the bay made for a pleasant day. Jock and I were led to a table under the roof that had recently been added to the Dry Dock’s bayside dining area. The space was open on three sides, giving us a panoramic view of Sarasota Bay and the city beyond. The green water shimmered, the occasional ripple as bright as an emerald. The tables were mostly taken, some locals, a few snowbirds and tourists, all enjoying a peaceful day in the sun. Servers hustled about their business, filling glasses, bringing food, clearing plates.

  The great white egret that lived on the property ambled along the sea wall, seemingly oblivious to the funny-looking humans who sat in the shade. I saw J.D. making her way to our table. She was wearing her usual cop attire, dark slacks, white polo shirt, and sensible pumps. She’d left her equipment belt in the car, but I knew she would have her .38 police special in an ankle holster, hidden by the slacks. Her hair hung loosely to her shoulders, and a smile of recognition lit up her elegant face. “She’s a beauty,” I said under my breath to Jock.

  “She’s also armed and dangerous,” he said, smiling. “Be careful, podna.”

  I watched her walk toward us, her gait relaxed, the smile radiating good cheer. My heart did that thing it always does when I see her, a little jig of joy at the prospect of spending time with her.

  I had been in love only once in my life and I had managed to screw that up. While I was working so hard at being a lawyer, I forgot that a marriage takes a little work, too. My wife Laura gave it her all, but it wasn’t enough. Not when she had to deal with a husband who was so intent on climbing the success ladder that he didn’t realize that without Laura, nothing else would matter.