by Paul Carr
Edwards glanced at him. “Yeah, lots better. The nurse said I could go home if the doctor approves it.”
Dalton introduced Crook, then said, “We have some photos of men who were guests at the jail a few months ago. How about taking a look and see if you recognize any of them?”
“Sure, let’s see them.”
Crook laid the photos side by side on the tray table and wheeled it over the bed. Earl and Casey were last in the lineup.
Edwards picked up the first photo and narrowed his eyes as he studied it. He laid it down and got the second one. When he got to the last two, he laid them aside together. “These two look familiar.”
“Does one of them look like the guy who slugged you?” Dalton asked.
Shaking his head, Edwards said, “Huh, I don’t know.” He pointed at the picture of Casey. “The hair color and length were similar to this one. But I only got a glimpse of the guy’s face. I don’t know if either of these was the guy, but both of them look familiar.”
This hadn’t gone as well as Dalton thought it would. Two of the other men had longish, dark hair, and he hadn’t fingered either of them. “Look at all of them again.”
Edwards shrugged and picked up the photos one at a time and studied them. “Sorry, I can’t say.” Then something changed in his eyes, and he grabbed up the same two shots. “Oh, yeah! I remember now. One of the other guards said these two were in a famous band.”
It wasn’t the kind of recognition Dalton had hoped for. He sighed.
“You think either one of them was your attacker?”
“Can’t really say for sure, but I don’t think so.”
“Okay. I appreciate your taking the time to look.”
They left, and in the car, Crook said, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. I thought we had him. We still need the DNA.” He pointed the car in the direction of Casey’s home.
When they arrived, Crook knocked on the door. No answer. He tried again and got the same result. “His vehicle is here,” Crook said. “Maybe he’s around back.”
Pushing through shrubs, they rounded the small house to the back yard. A rock song played from speakers on the apron of a swimming pool. Colin Casey lay on a lounger, a beer in his hand. His long hair hung in wet tangles. Dalton noticed his tattoos for the first time. A Celtic cross occupied a space of about four inches midway between the back of his hand and his elbow. He sat up, seemingly alarmed when they first came into view, and then a frown crawled onto his features. “What, you just invite yourself into a person’s private space?”
“We knocked on the door,” Dalton said, “and didn’t get an answer. We need to talk to you about Ana Kovich.”
He seemed to think for a minute. “You mean Riley’s housekeeper?”
“That’s right. How well do you know her?”
“Not very well. She’s a looker. I asked her out once, but she said she was seeing somebody. What about her?”
“We just caught her trying to leave town with a suitcase full of money and valuables that belonged to Riley Gunn. She said they were gifts, but I don’t believe it.”
“No, he was too stingy.” He raised an eyebrow. “You think she’s the one who murdered him?”
“Maybe, but we need to ask you some questions, too.”
“I had an alibi, remember? I thought you checked it out.”
Dalton nodded. “I did, but Marilyn Coe said she slept in a different room, and couldn’t swear that you stayed put all night.”
“Well, I did. I was trashed. I couldn’t have driven anywhere.”
“Whoever killed Riley also killed William Chan at the county jail this morning.”
“Who?”
“William Chan. Are you pretending you don’t know him?”
“Yeah, because I don’t know him,” Casey said, his voice rising in volume with each word.
“Mind if we go inside?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” He stood with his beer and grabbed a towel from the back of the lounge chair. They entered the back door, which went directly into the living room. Casey said he wanted to put on some clothes and headed down the hall. They took a seat, and Dalton pulled out his phone and punched in the number Ana Kovich had called. The house was small, and he hoped to hear a ringtone, but all he heard was the hum of the refrigerator a few feet away. Then someone picked up on the other end, but remained silent. Dalton held on for a few seconds before hanging up. He said to Crook, “If it’s his phone, he must have the ringer turned off.”
Casey returned a minute later wearing pants and a shirt. “Now, who’s this Chan dude you mentioned?”
“William Chan was the head of the Eon Harbor group in Key West. He was also a local drug kingpin, and he was murdered this morning, probably so he couldn’t name Riley Gunn’s murderer.”
“You’re saying Chan knew who killed Riley?”
“That’s right. We have a video of him ordering a man to kill him so he could take over Gunn’s drug territory.”
The Irishman’s eyes widened, “Who else was in the video?”
“From what we could see, a guy who looked a lot like you.”
“Are you kidding? No. It wasn’t me.” He took a nervous slug from his beer bottle and set it down. “Like I said, I didn’t even know Chan.”
“You knew Riley was distributing, though, didn’t you?”
Casey sighed. “Yeah, I knew. It wasn’t a surprise. He told everybody the band would have a comeback, but after Thailand, he didn’t seem to care anymore. I think he just gave up after the drug money came rolling in. He said once that he never had to touch the product. So I guess that made it all right in his eyes.”
“And that left the rest of you out in the cold.” Before Casey could argue, Dalton said, “Chan’s killer attacked a jail guard at his home and took his ID and uniform. He used them to get to Chan while he was in a jail cell, but he got careless and left some blood at the guard’s home. We need a DNA swab from you.”
“DNA?” Casey seem to think about that for a moment, then shook his head. “No, man. I didn’t have anything to do with any of that.”
“We can get a warrant, if you want to go that route. In that case, we’ll include a search of your house and vehicle. No telling what we might turn up.”
Casey sighed. “I need to talk it over with my lawyer first. If he’s cool with it, I’ll come by your office later and give you the sample.”
“Why don’t you call him now, and we’ll wait?”
“Well…okay. Let me see if I can get him on the phone. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He dropped his empty beer bottle in the trash and headed down the hall, punching in a number on his phone. When he reached his bedroom, he closed the door.
A few minutes passed, and Crook said, “Wonder how long he’s gonna take. We need to get going.”
“You playing tonight?”
“Yeah, a new place, and I have to set up.”
Dalton went to the bedroom door and knocked. When Casey didn’t answer, he twisted the knob and pushed inside. Casey wasn’t there, and the window was open. A couple of coat hangers lay on the floor, and there were several on the bed. Dalton rushed back through the house.
“What’s wrong?” Crook asked.
“He gave us the slip.”
They went out the front door and saw his vehicle still in the driveway. “Somebody must’ve given him a ride,” Dalton said. “Whoever it was must have picked him up down the block, since we didn’t hear an engine.”
“Or drove a quiet car, maybe electric.”
“Why don’t you take my car and drive around the block,” Dalton said, handing him his keys. “See if you spot him. I’ll search around the outside of the house while you’re gone.”
Crook agreed and headed to the vehicle.
Dalton went down one side of the house to the rear, and then back up the other side to the front. All he saw was an egret chasing a bug.
Returning a couple of minutes later,
Crook said, “Somebody picked him up, and he’s long gone.”
They got evidence bags from the car, went back inside, and bagged Casey’s empty beer bottle.
“He must be guilty,” Crook said.
“Sure looks that way. I shouldn’t have let him out of our sight.”
“Don’t kick yourself. We got the bottle. He probably didn’t think about that.”
A quick search inside the house provided no additional evidence. Dalton said, “If he stole anything from Gunn’s safe, he took it with him. I’ll drop you by your car so you can go to your gig.”
“What’re you gonna do?”
“I thought I’d go get a swab from Jimmy Earl.”
“You sure you don’t need me.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t expect any trouble.”
After driving his partner to the office, Dalton went on to Earl’s place, but didn’t find him at home. Turning the car around, he headed toward Ana Kovich’s house to see if there had been any activity there.
Edwards’s inability to tag Casey as his attacker nagged at him. What if Casey wasn’t the one? Who else could it be? His phone chimed and he glanced at the display: Tarver. “Just wanted to let you know the blood we found on the wall at the Edwards scene is a different type from his, so it definitely came from somebody else.”
“That’s good news. When do you think you’ll get the DNA results?”
“Our courier took it to the lab and dropped it off a couple of hours ago. They said they would do their best to get us the analysis by tomorrow.”
As Dalton neared the former housekeeper’s duplex, his phone sounded again. He didn’t recognize the number. “Hello.”
“Hey, Detective, this is Colin Casey. I didn’t murder anybody, but I don’t want my DNA analyzed, either.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. Why not?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Would one of them be because of the murder investigation in the U.K. that you ran out on?”
Casey paused, then said, “So, you know about that. I didn’t kill that guy, but I had a fight with him an hour or two before he was murdered, and I might’ve left some blood on the scene.”
“What was the fight about?”
“Somebody put me up to it, to try to scare the guy. I think it was the same person that put the frame on me for the murder. I had to get out of there, but I didn’t kill the guy, just like I haven’t killed anybody in Key West.” Before Dalton could reply, he added, “I’m leaving town until you catch the guy.” He hung up.
At Kovich’s place, he pulled up by the cruiser on watch and lowered his window. “Anything happening?” he asked the deputy at the wheel.
“Nah. She got in her car about an hour ago, but just went down the street to the store and came back. It looked like she bought a bottle of wine.”
“Okay, stay with it until you get a relief crew.”
Dalton remembered Bobby Carson calling about the tattoo and headed over to his house. The old man answered the door and invited him in. He picked up a magazine and showed him the picture of the tattoo he had called about. “I’m pretty sure this is what the guy had on his right arm.”
The image looked like one Dalton had seen online, but it didn’t resemble the one inked on Colin Casey’s arm. He snapped a photo with his phone, thanked Carson, and left. Another reason to think Casey wasn’t right for the murders.
Back at the office, he took Casey’s beer bottle to the CSI unit and left it with Tarver. “I don’t think this is our guy, but maybe we can cross him off the list if it doesn’t match the blood from Edwards’s bedroom wall.”
“The Edwards scene was our first lucky break,” Tarver said. “We have a number of prints from his car. Maybe the attacker got careless and left his prints there. I should know more in an hour or so.”
Dalton’s phone chimed as he headed for his desk. It was the watch commander. “My deputies said Otto Edwards is getting released from the hospital. Do they need to take him home and stand watch?”
“Yes. His attacker might be waiting for him there. We need to keep somebody posted until he goes back to work or we find the guy.”
“Okay, will do.”
It was 5:30, and he wanted to wait for the print results Tarver had mentioned. Remembering the photo of the tattoo he had taken of Bobby Carson’s magazine page, he brought it up on his phone and wondered who had one like it. He retrieved the videos of interviews he and Crook had conducted and started up the one for Jimmy Earl. Earl had his arms on the table in front of him, so Dalton stopped the action and zoomed in on his tattoos. There were several, but none of them were Celtic crosses. He skipped the Casey interview and moved on to the one for Sheffield and his girlfriend Richele. A tingle buzzed the nape of Dalton’s neck when he zoomed in on Sheffield’s right arm. A large Celtic cross adorned most of the area between his wrist and elbow. It bore a striking resemblance to the one from Carson’s magazine. Dalton brought up Sheffield’s driver’s license photo and printed it. He found several mug shots of men who had been arrested recently and printed them as well.
****
A cruiser sat on the street in front of Edwards’s mobile home. Dalton waved at them as he got out of the car and headed to the door. Edwards answered after several knocks. “Hey, you again. What’s up this time?” His eyes appeared sunken inside darkened half-moons.
“I have some more photos for you look at.”
“Okay, come on in, but you need to make it quick. I gotta get in bed.”
Inside, Edwards took a seat in his recliner, and Dalton sat on the end of the sofa nearest him. The wounded man took the stack of images and began flipping them, scanning for a second or two with each one. On the fourth one, he said, “I remember this guy from the jail. He was there for about a week, but he wasn’t the one who attacked me.” He flipped to the last page, which was Sheffield, stopped, and thumped the page with his index finger. “This could be the guy. You know how tall he is.”
“He’s over six feet. About your height.”
Edwards nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s him. His hair is a little longer now, but something about his eyes makes me think it’s him.”
****
Dalton drove to Alan Sheffield’s condo and found his parking space vacant. He climbed the stairs and rang the doorbell. No answer. He tried again with the same result. Nobody was stirring nearby, so he picked the lock and pushed inside. The place looked as if the owner had moved: only empty hangers filled the bedroom closets. He found dirty glasses in the kitchen sink, and knew one of them would probably yield DNA. It wouldn’t do any good, though, without a warrant. The closets and bedroom had a vacant feel, too. If he had stolen the victims’ computers, he had taken them with him. There didn’t seem to be anything else of value. The CSI team could give it more scrutiny when he got the warrant.
His phone chimed as he got back into his car. Crook. “Randy Teal called me about the number from Ana Kovich’s phone I asked him to check. He said it belongs to Alan Sheffield, the lead guitarist for Redgunn.”
Dalton told him about the tattoo and Edwards identifying Sheffield as his attacker.
“Sounds like our guy, then.”
“I think so. We need to nail it down with DNA if we can.” A beep indicated another call coming in, so he and Crook hung up.
When he answered, one of the deputies guarding Ana Kovich’s home said, “A black Cadillac SUV just pulled in, and she ran out the door and got in. They’re pulling out now. You want us to follow them?”
“Yes, but don’t let them see you, and don’t try to apprehend them. I have reason to believe the driver is armed and dangerous. You get the plate number?”
“Yep. I checked it out, and it belongs to a guy named Sheffield.”
“Okay, stay on the line. I’m heading that way.”
“Roger that. Putting you on speaker.”
Dalton stuck a flasher on the roof and sped out to the highway. A minute later the deputy said, “We just t
urned north on A1A. A couple of cars are between us, so I don’t think he realizes we’re back here.”
“Good, stay with them. They’re probably on the run.”
“You want us to radio ahead?”
“Let’s hold off on that. He could have a police scanner.”
“Okay, we’re on them like a swarm of no-see-ums.”
The cruiser was about five miles ahead on Big Coppitt Key. Dalton pushed his car as fast as traffic permitted. The sun reclined on the horizon in his rear view, casting long shadows up the highway. It would be dark within minutes, and that would make the job of tracking Sheffield more difficult.
The two deputies talked between themselves. One of them phoned the watch commander to let him know what was going on. When Dalton thought he was within a mile or so of the cruiser he shut off the roof flasher. A few minutes later the deputy said to Dalton, “Okay, they’re turning onto Indies Road at Ramrod Key. It’s a neighborhood, so we’re dousing our headlights.”
“I’m not far behind. If I remember correctly, there’s water access from that road.”
“Yeah, some of the houses have lighted boat docks at the rear.”
“They probably have a boat waiting.”
“Looks like they’re turning in at a vacant lot. I’m calling for backup on the phone. We passed a sheriff’s station a few minutes ago, so we should be able to get another cruiser here pretty fast.”
“Tell them to come in quietly. I’m nearing Indies now.” A minute later he turned in, sped along until he saw the cruiser parked on the shoulder of the road, and pulled over behind it. He got out with his Maglite.
A deputy stood next to the car. “They’re down beyond those two houses on the left. Clark followed on foot so he could keep them in sight.” He and Dalton hurried to the vacant lot.
The moon gave off some illumination, but it was still pretty dark. Someone had partially cleared the property, and about twenty feet in he spotted Clark on the ground, face down. They ran over to him and the deputy checked for a pulse. “He’s alive. Somebody must’ve slugged him.”
The Caddie was parked in the brush at the shore about seventy feet away, and a boat was tied there, its engine running. A dim light illuminated a crude gangplank. The boat, a trawler of about forty feet, looked like the same one that had attempted to pick up William Chan when he tried to escape. Dalton could see the silhouette of a man on board, and another man and a woman were stepping onto the gangplank. The man was wheeling a suitcase. Dalton pulled his service weapon and eased that way.