They drove to a remote spot where Ivan had left his rental. And then it was like the two of them were having a late-night picnic on a blanket that Ivan spread out. Toffey grabbed the baggie of meth Ivan provided and then took a huge hit from his grubby glass pipe. He moved deep with the dopamine flood in Tweaker Nirvana. In an unusual moment of compassion, Ivan waited until the tweaker took a second hit before he unloaded a 9mm slug into Toffey’s brain—he died with a smile on his face, and Ivan dragged him over to the hole he’d dug earlier.
Being a gangster wasn’t as much fun as Ivan had thought it would be. It was better in the video games.
After he deleted Toffey’s file he began preparing for his next day’s meeting.
11
SHEEP SHEARING
Ivan called Lutz at two o’clock exactly. “I’m at the Botanical Conservancy at 1100 South Calhoun Street. Don’t go inside the exhibit. You’ll find me outside in the back behind their southwest lawn.”
“We should be there in about ten minutes,” said Lutz.
It was closer to fifteen minutes later when Lutz came at Ivan from one direction, and Thursby approached him from another. Each of the men was scouting the area. Like sharks, they narrowed the space with each pass.
When Lutz got closer to Ivan he said, “Interesting place to meet, Ivanhoe.”
“You ought to see the inside. There are three separate areas, all of them climate-controlled with different collections. Each area has a different landscape. One is seasonal, one is tropical, and the last is a desert.”
“Geez, I don’t want to miss any of that.”
“Around us there’s something special as well.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’ve set up hidden cameras that are live-streaming now. You know those incriminating audiotapes I told you about? If something happens to me, everything gets sent out. That will happen at midnight unless I intervene.”
“I thought you were already copacetic,” said Lutz, throwing Ivan’s word from the day before back at him, “with our mutually assured destruction.”
“You can’t be too careful.”
Thursby silently came up behind Ivan. For a big man, he moved very quietly.
“You need to return to Florida right away,” said Lutz. “We need eyes and ears on the firm.”
“I don’t work for free.”
“No, you work for us. We’re here to remind you of that. I’m giving you five thousand in expense money and you’re lucky to be getting that. Florida has the death penalty on the books. That’s what you’re looking at. It’s in your interest to get us everything on the firm you can. We need to be kept up-to-date on their game plan.”
“You could have told me that over the phone.”
“But we wouldn’t have been able to do this over the phone.”
Lutz signaled Thursby. With his left arm, the man grabbed Ivan and lifted him from the ground. From the corner of his eye, Ivan could see him reaching into his coat. Ivan was terrified he was pulling out a gun, but that wasn’t what was in the thug’s hand. “You’re an amateur, Ivanhoe,” said Lutz. “You think someone who saw all that big hair once, wouldn’t take notice if they saw it again?”
Ivan’s arms were pinned against the rock-hard body of his attacker. He tried kicking with his legs, but didn’t get anywhere.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to struggle right now,” said Lutz. “In fact I wouldn’t even say anything except maybe, ‘Baaahh.’” In Thursby’s right hand was a pair of battery-operated clippers.
“Now where are those cameras of yours?” asked Lutz. “I’m thinking we should all be smiling and waving so that later you can enjoy the show.”
Ivan went limp in Thursby’s arm, but that didn’t make his shearing any less painful as the clippers raked across Ivan’s scalp; it felt as if the goon was pulling his hair out at the roots. As brutal as the shearing was, it was over quickly. A military barber probably couldn’t have cut his hair as quickly.
“Are we clear on who is calling the shots here?” asked Lutz.
The shorn Ivan nodded. Thursby opened his muscled arm and Ivan fell to the ground. The big man stood over him and stared. Ivan wanted to curse him out, but was afraid of provoking ’roid rage.
“What?” he asked.
“You going to tip your barber?”
Lutz started laughing riotously, tossed the envelope of expense money in Ivan’s lap, and then the two men walked off. Ivan reached for a lock of his sheared hair, studied it wistfully, and then tossed it aside.
12
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT AND THERAPY
Deke hadn’t been alone with Gina since she’d been brought out of her induced coma. He was responsible for that. On the occasions he’d visited, Deke had known others would be there. With the passage of time, Gina could have come to the conclusion that she’d been dreaming or hallucinating. Even if she remembered what they’d talked about, by now she might have decided vigilante justice wasn’t something she could be a part of. It would be easy to blame her loose words on her being in shock or on the drugs.
That would be best for Gina, Deke thought, but not for him.
Deke had started his career as a prosecutor who firmly believed that people who planned and engineered the murder of other people should die, preferably in the electric chair rather than by “humane” lethal injection. He had testified in front of the Florida legislature about the need for a death penalty for predators who raped small children.
That wasn’t lip service. That was Deke to the core.
Martin always thought it funny that Deke had the reputation of being a bleeding-heart liberal. He told anyone who would listen that Deke was more like “hanging” Judge Roy Bean than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Deke had earned his reputation as a liberal from his frequent appearances on national radio and television, where typically the issues discussed were civil rights, women’s rights, freedom of the press, and questions of liability. When it came to issues of law and order, crime and punishment, and the death penalty, Deke returned to his persona as the angry prosecutor. He was proud that he had convicted murderers and succeeded in getting death-penalty verdicts. According to Deke, he never lost a minute’s sleep putting a killer on death row. Heinous crimes, in his view, needed to be met with unblinking justice.
If Angus Moore was murdered, his killers needed to be dealt that same fate. For Deke, that was black and white. And if the state or the Feds wouldn’t see to that justice, Deke was willing to take the law into his own hands. Since the accident, Deke had used the firm’s investigators, especially Carol Morris, to run a shadow investigation into the death of Angus. Carol and her team were still gathering facts.
The Spanish Trace police hadn’t yet ruled on the cause of death, but their initial take on it seemed to preclude murder. They had determined that both Angus and Gina were drinking and thought that might explain his erratic driving. There was also speculation that Angus had been “showing off” for his lady friend. Another theory put forth was that Angus and Gina had been fighting, which could explain the reckless driving, as well as Gina’s being thrown from the car. It could also explain the suicide of Angus. If he assumed Gina had died after being thrown from the car, and thought he was culpable, Angus might have decided to end his own life. That would explain his plowing into a bridge support while going over a hundred miles an hour. At that speed he also might have just lost control.
Carol Morris’s investigation, though, was revealing plenty of discrepancies in the various theories put forth by the police. That was why Deke was here today. He had questions for Gina. Carol had already talked to her twice, but hadn’t come away satisfied with her answers.
“I don’t think she’s being totally forthcoming,” Carol had told Deke, “even though I’m not sure why that is.”
It was possible, Carol thought, that Gina had a form of PTSD. Another possibility was memory impairment due to a brain injury. Gina was, after all, undergoing extensive cognition therapy.
At first, Dr. Bray had said Gina dove into her physical and mental therapy at full speed. But in the last two days the doctor had told Deke that Gina hadn’t been as cooperative. She was impatient, he said, and was demanding to go home.
“Hey,” said Deke, standing at the entrance to Gina’s opened door.
She was carefully applying ointment to the “road rash” that covered most of her body. As Gina looked up, Deke was glad to see the happy recognition in her eyes. She waved him in and said, “Good timing. Big Nurse that terrorizes me every day just left. If you close the door behind you, we might actually be undisturbed for a few minutes.”
“Big Nurse?” asked Deke as he took a bedside seat. “Sounds like you’re making friends fast around here.”
“Believe me,” said Gina, “she lives up to that name. The psych ward would be preferable to having to undergo all of her neurological tests and so-called brain therapy.”
“And on top of that,” said Gina, “today I really started shedding. I’m like a snake losing its skin. Everything on me itches.”
“You’re looking better,” said Deke.
That was a white lie. Gina was at the point in her recovery where her body was displaying the trials she’d endured. Her extensive bruising ran the gamut of colors from eggplant purple to banana yellow. And then there was also her “shedding,” as Gina referred to it.
“If you really think I’m looking better,” Gina said, “you better sue the doctor that did your Lasik surgery.”
Deke smiled. He thought it was a good sign that Gina’s self-deprecating humor had returned.
“Did I mention I’m going stir-crazy?” said Gina.
“I kind of figured that out.”
“You need to get me out of here.”
“I’ll smuggle you a cake with a nail file in it,” he said.
Gina gave him a “not amused” look. Deke decided to forego the humor. “You almost died a week ago. Like it or not, you need this recovery time.”
“If you want me to be a good patient during this enforced captivity,” said Gina, “I’ll need some quid pro quo.”
“What do you want?”
“You need to make me lead attorney on Sight-Clops and Arbalest.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible. I can get up to speed while I’m recovering here.”
“Ned is the logical one to take over for Angus.”
“No he’s not,” said Gina. “Before he died, Angus asked me to come aboard. He wanted me to, in his words, ‘go toe to toe with AUSA Trench.’ He also admitted that he should have brought me in the case even earlier. So I’m not the only one who is asking. Angus is asking as well.”
“You’re too close to the case,” said Deke.
“We’re all too close to it,” she said. “But I’m the only one who needs to be close to it.”
Deke picked up on her emphasis. “And why is that?”
“If we want justice for Angus,” she said, “it will require our asking probing questions. As the lead attorney in this case, it would be my job to ask those kinds of questions. It would be expected. No one would think anything of it. Nor would anyone ever question any fishing expedition I might undertake. That’s pretty much the norm. However, if I wasn’t the lead attorney, my asking too many questions would raise red flags. We don’t want those kinds of suspicions. It would be counterproductive to our goals.”
With each emphasized word, Gina revealed the subtext of her conversation. She clearly hadn’t forgotten the discussion they’d had in private.
“I’ll have to think about it,” said Deke.
“Don’t try placating me. You know I’m right. You know it’s the best way to go. This isn’t something you can do yourself, especially with the demands of the DuPont case. Clearly you need an insider. That’s the only way we can work on this together.”
Her argument was a forceful one. Deke was sure she’d probably practiced it in her mind for the last day or two. But it was up to him to point out the flaws in her case.
“You’re not well enough to take on that kind of workload,” he said.
“You know what will make me well?”
“What?”
“The Arbalest case,” she said. “Let me guess: since Angus died no one has done any work on it.”
“You’re right,” said Deke. “We’ve been doing things like making sure his wife was taken care of and seeing that his daughter was able to get the best adolescent counseling available. And we’ve been trying to help you, even if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” said Gina, her voice low. “But Angus was murdered, Deke. And I was almost murdered as well. That’s not something I will ever be able to forgive or forget.”
Playing the role of devil’s advocate, Deke said, “Nothing you’ve said to Carol, or the Spanish Trace police, makes them believe a murder took place.”
“Detective Jenkins is investigating the case,” she said, spitting out his name. “I don’t have to tell you he couldn’t find his asshole with a flashlight.”
The year before, Jenkins and his ilk had presumed Deke was guilty of murder in their rush to judgment.
“What about Carol?” he asked.
“The answers I gave her might not have been as complete as they otherwise could have been,” said Gina.
“And why is that?”
“We can’t involve her in a conspiracy that could land all of us in prison if it goes bad. This needs to be our risk alone.”
“But we’re going to need Carol and her investigators unknowingly helping us in this. I want you to tell her everything you remember, and don’t hold back on your suspicions. It’s critical that we get all our findings right. We have to be sure that the party in our crosshairs is guilty.”
Gina nodded. “Suddenly,” she said, “I’m remembering a few things that Carol will want to hear.”
“Good,” said Deke. “We need to go by the book in the early stages of this investigation. In that way nothing looks out of the ordinary.”
“Understood,” said Gina. Then she asked, “Have you decided yet?”
“Decided what?”
“To have me head up the Arbalest case.”
“I can now understand all those reports I’ve been getting saying that you’re driving your doctor and the nurses crazy.”
“You can’t wait on this, Deke,” she said. “I am sure the bad guys thought that killing Angus might put an end to our case. At the least, they knew it would buy them more time. They knew we would be in disarray and assumed it would be a long time, if ever, until we picked up the pieces. The bad guys will be using that time to destroy evidence, as well as go even deeper underground.
“Angus told me this was the rare case in which he could proceed in all sorts of ways. One of those ways was to go forward with our whistle-blower’s claim, with or without Justice on our side. He also pointed out that we could pursue a traditional defective product case against Arbalest and sue them individually for every case where it caused a wrongful death or injury. What excited Angus most, though, was the possibility of getting jail time for the sorts that don’t usually get it.
“You heard him in the monthly meeting. He said he was working on getting some evidence. Later, he said the same thing to me. I suspect it was his pushing on this that got him killed.”
“I’ll pass on that information to Carol and her team,” said Deke, “And I’ll warn them at the same time.”
“Warn?” she said. “I want to pursue whatever Angus was looking into. That’s why you need to let me read through his notes. I want to retrace his steps and find out where he was applying the heat. And then I want to add additional pressure. I want to provoke our enemies.”
Deke knew when he was beaten. “All right,” he said, raising his hands to surrender. “You’ve got the case.”
13
WHO GUARDS THE GUARDS?
The next day Angus’s notes, along with printouts from his case files that filled
a dozen boxes, were brought to Gina. She was also given the access codes to his private computer work files, along with the shared files that could be accessed by partners.
All of those things she had pretty much expected. What Gina wasn’t expecting was Bennie Stokes. After Bennie delivered everything to Gina, he didn’t leave. Instead, he informed her that he was now her bodyguard.
“No offense,” Gina said, “but I didn’t ask for a bodyguard, and I don’t want one.”
“I’ll be just outside if you need me,” said Bennie.
Gina immediately dialed Deke’s private line. “What’s the idea?”
“If you want Arbalest,” he said, “it comes with Bennie. And I’m not talking about just while you’re in the hospital. Bennie will be assigned to you for as long as you work this case.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“It’s nonnegotiable,” said Deke, and ended their conversation.
Gina chafed at the idea of being assigned a bodyguard. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Bennie; it was just that she didn’t like encumbrances in general. She knew Bennie was involved in the firm’s security, but hadn’t interacted with him much over the years. He was an imposing figure to be sure, a man of size and stature. There was also no mistaking his Native American ancestry. The two feathers weaved into a single braid of his long, black hair made it that much more obvious. He was definitely someone you’d want on your side in a fight, but that didn’t mean she had to be keen about his watching over her. Still, if they were going to be spending time together, it only made sense for Gina to know more about him.
“Bennie,” she called, “if you don’t mind I’d like to have a little chat.”
The big man took several steps into the hospital room and stood there.
Law and Vengeance Page 9