Mortal Dilemma

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “He must have left here shortly after we went to bed. Do you have the license plate number on his rental?”

  “Yes. According to what we’ve found out, he turned the car in to the rental company about the time he disabled the tracking device. I was calling you in hopes that something had gone wrong with the electronics and he was still hanging out with you.”

  “Not likely.”

  “No, but before I loosed the dogs I wanted to make sure he’d truly gone. What kind of shape was he in last night?”

  “Better than in the last week. He said he was finished with the booze and would be back at work in a few days. I didn’t really believe him, though. Whatever he was involved in put him lower than I’ve ever seen him. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Sorry, Matt. I can’t. He’ll have to be the one to tell you.”

  “What are you going to do about finding him?”

  “I just got a list of all the flights leaving Tampa after midnight. We’ll check the passenger manifests against Jock’s aliases, but if he’s trying to hide from us, he’ll use one we don’t know anything about.”

  “What else?”

  “We’ll hack into the airport security cameras and see if we can spot him. He’ll know about those, so he might be able to figure out a way to dodge them.”

  “Will you keep me posted, Dave?”

  “I will. I’ll get back to you within the hour with what we find.”

  I cut the connection and called J.D. “I just got off the phone with Dave Kendall. If you can come by for lunch, I’ll have it ready and fill you in on what Dave had to say.”

  “I’ll see you at noon. You’ve got half an hour to get it ready. It better be good. I’m bringing a guest.”

  “Who?”

  “Your buddy. He stopped by to see how I was doing. He’s talking to the chief right now about fishing.”

  “Logan doesn’t know anything about fishing.”

  “A lack of knowledge never stopped Logan from talking about any subject.”

  “Right.” I hung up, jogged home, and after a quick shower drove the two miles down the key to Harry’s Deli and bought our lunch. I had not told her I’d make the lunch, just that I’d have it ready.

  * * *

  Logan Hamilton, my best friend on the island, was a financial services executive who’d made a lot of money and retired early. He once said that the reason for his early financial success was the karmic need for someone to show up on Longboat Key and take care of Matt Royal.

  Logan and Jock had become close over the years, and when Jock was going through one of his cleansing times, Logan stayed away until Jock was ready for some carousing. Logan was of the opinion that he was a better carouser than I, and would therefore be of more use to Jock after the cleansing had been completed. Logan was at least half right. He could carouse better than anyone I’d ever met.

  Over lunch, I brought J.D. and Logan current on Jock’s disappearance.

  “Have you checked to see what flights were leaving at that time of night?” Logan asked.

  “No,” I said. “Jock’s boss, Dave Kendall has that and is checking to see if Jock took any of them. He will know what aliases Jock has access to, so it’ll be easier to figure out where he was headed. But Dave told me that Jock probably had an alias that the agency wouldn’t know about.”

  “What do you think he’s up to?” J.D. asked.

  “I’m afraid to think about it,” I said.

  J.D. reached across the table and took my hand. “You have to think about it, Matt. You know him best. He’s in trouble. He’s never been this depressed before, and I don’t think he just left for the heck of it. He cut off communication with you and his agency. We need to find him.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know. I’m afraid he’s going off somewhere to die.”

  “That’s a pretty radical thought,” Logan said.

  “I’ve been worried about this for years. I’ve always been afraid that the day will come when he can’t escape the specter of self-loathing that haunts him, and whatever draws him closer and closer to the edge will finally consume him. That’ll be the end for Jock. He’ll slink off like an elderly pet who somehow knows it’s time to die and wants to find a secluded place to wait for the end.”

  “Do you think that’s what Jock’s doing?” J.D. asked.

  “I hope not. Maybe he’s just giving us the space he thinks we need.”

  “Then, why the secrecy?” Logan asked. “And why cut off communication with Kendall?”

  “There’s that,” I said. “And that’s what worries me.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31

  J.D. WAS ON her way back to the station when Steve Carey called. “Peter Fortson, the brother of our victim, is on the key if you want to talk to him.”

  “Good detecting. How did you find that out?”

  “I called his house and he answered the phone.”

  “You’ll go far in this business. What reason did you give him for calling?”

  “I told him we’d reopened the case and would like to stop by and discuss it with him. He said to come anytime. I thought now might be a good time.”

  “I’m less than a mile from his house. I’ll meet you there. Don’t mention this to the chief. I’m supposed to be on desk duty.”

  “I doubt that he believes you’ll stay in your office.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “Yeah. Got it.”

  * * *

  The house was large, with an expansive view of the Gulf. It was set back from Gulf of Mexico Drive and separated from the road by a small jungle of native plants. The house had been built before the rules requiring certain setbacks from the beach had been implemented, so it abutted the sand, with only enough room for a small swimming pool between the house and the low dunes.

  J.D. parked in the driveway and waited for Carey. He pulled up in a cruiser within minutes and they approached the house together.

  A middle-aged man wearing shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops answered the door. “Come in,” he said. “I’m excited that you’re reopening this case.”

  J.D. introduced herself and Officer Carey. “Actually, it’s never been closed. We just haven’t had any leads in the past three years. Not until now.”

  Fortson led them into the living room. The three of them took seats and J.D. told him what she’d learned in the panhandle.

  “So,” Fortson said, “you know who killed my sister.”

  “We do,” J.D. said, “but he’s dead. I don’t think he just up and decided to drive to Longboat and kill a woman he didn’t know. Somebody paid him five thousand dollars to do it, and I want to know who that was.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I want to go over a number of things that you’ve already given us. Back when the murder first happened. I’ve read the transcripts and the reports, but I’d like to start from the beginning and see if what you know might bring this new information into sharper focus.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “I’m working with a lot more information than the detective who interviewed you three years ago had. I’m hoping that something you can tell me might add to what I know now. The other side of that coin is that the new information I gathered from the sheriff in Franklin County might help me think of questions that weren’t asked before.”

  “Okay. Fire away. Some of what I have to say might be a little fuzzy. May I see the transcript of my earlier interview?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have that with me. Can we proceed?”

  Fortson shrugged.

  “Do you still live in Orlando?” J.D. asked.

  “Yes. Windermere.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I dabble.”

  “In what?”

  “Real estate, stocks, bonds, that sort of thing.”

  “How long have you been doing that?”

  “All my adult life.”

  “What
is your age?”

  “Forty-six.”

  “So you were about three years older than Rachel.”

  “Almost to the day.”

  “Do you have any other siblings?”

  “No. It was just the two of us.”

  “Any other family?”

  “No, my parents are dead. There are some distant cousins whom I really don’t know.”

  “Windermere’s pretty pricey real estate. So is a Gulf-front house on Longboat Key. You must do pretty well with your dabbling.”

  “Pretty well, but you probably know that I’ve got a substantial trust fund.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “My grandfather made a lot of money in Orlando real estate. He left it all to his only child, my dad, in a trust that was divided between my sister and me at my father’s death.”

  “Do you have any idea why someone would want your sister dead?”

  “No. She was a sweet woman.”

  “Did she live in Orlando?”

  “No. She lived in a condo in the Buckhead section of Atlanta.”

  “Did she work?”

  “She didn’t have a job, if that’s what you mean. She volunteered for several charities, served on their boards, gave them lots of money, that kind of thing.”

  “Why was she here in Longboat when she was killed?”

  “She’d been through a rough time. She was ending a ten-year marriage and the legal process had drained her. Did you know that in Georgia divorces are tried before a jury? It was brutal, but the jury didn’t give her husband anything and the judge restored her maiden name. The divorce was final and she was a basket case. I suggested she come down here and lay on the beach for a couple of weeks.”

  “Do you think her ex-husband had anything to do with her murder?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why? He’d seem to be a reasonable suspect.”

  “Two reasons. He’s a quiet type, an academic, a college professor. I just can’t see him as the murderer. Secondly, he couldn’t get his hands on five thousand dollars to pay a hit man if his life depended on it.”

  “Do you know if he’s still in Atlanta?”

  “As far as I know. I haven’t seen him since Rachel’s funeral.”

  “Ever talked to him?”

  “No.”

  “I gather that Rachel didn’t have children.”

  “Right. Neither she nor her husband wanted them.”

  “What happened to her marriage?”

  Fortson scoffed. “Coed-itis.”

  J.D. smiled. “He started fooling around with his students.”

  “Yeah. Rachel put up with it for a while, but finally gave him an ultimatum. Quit screwing around or get a divorce.”

  “He didn’t stop.”

  “No. I don’t think he could. It was an addiction. I thought it had to do with power. He could cajole the twenty-year-old students into his bed. He was a good-looking guy and the girls thought he was some kind of genius. He also controlled their grades, so they were easy pickings.”

  “What did he teach?”

  “Humanities.”

  “But you don’t think he had anything to do with Rachel’s death.”

  “No.”

  “What about the coeds?” J.D. asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Could one of them have been involved in Rachel’s murder? The scorned lover? Jealousy?”

  “I guess it’s possible, but I doubt it. None of those romances lasted beyond the semester. He taught at a community college and every girl that Rachel told me about was finishing her second year. She’d be moving on to a university or into the job market. I doubt that he ever saw them after they left. He’d lost his control over them and there were always classes full of coeds coming along.”

  “What happened to Rachel’s trust when she died?”

  “The trust was set up so that each of us benefitted equally. It also funded a life insurance policy on each of us. We were the beneficiaries of the each other’s policy, so when Rachel died, I got the proceeds from her policy. I also became the sole beneficiary of the trust.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “No. And I’m not likely to have any. I’m gay.”

  “So, what happens to the trust when you die?”

  “It all goes to charity.”

  “What was the face amount of the policy?”

  “Five million dollars, and my income from the trust doubled. I think I know where you’re going with this. All that money must seem like a motive, but I assure you I didn’t need any more money than I already had. I think the detective who was originally assigned to this case looked into that issue quite thoroughly.”

  “Enough to satisfy me,” J.D. said. “His report is very detailed.”

  “Glad to hear it. The insurance company ran me through the wringer looking for an excuse to deny the claim.”

  “They always do that.” J.D. looked at Steve. “Do you have anything, Steve?”

  “No. I think you covered it.”

  She turned back toward Fortson. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Fortson. By all reports, your sister was a wonderful woman. I hope we can find the person who set this up. I’ll keep you posted.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31

  DAVE KENDALL CALLED as I was cleaning up the kitchen. Logan had left shortly after J.D.

  “This is kind of strange,” Dave said. “Jock left Tampa on a flight to Miami. He was traveling under his own name, and to make sure we didn’t miss something, when he got to his gate, he held a piece of paper up for the security camera that had ‘Miami’ written on it. He was grinning and looked sober as a judge.”

  “Did he actually take the plane to Miami?”

  “We looked at the security camera tapes from the Miami airport. We saw him leaving the jetway at a little after one o’clock this morning.”

  “Any rental cars, credit card use, that sort of thing?”

  “Nothing. At least not under any of the aliases we know about. He’s disappeared completely.”

  “Thanks for the update, Dave. I don’t know what he’s up to, but it can’t be good.”

  “Let me know if you hear from him.”

  I finished in the kitchen, chewing on what Dave had told me. I couldn’t come up with any reason for Jock to go to Miami. I was concerned that he’d used that as a transit point. He would have complete identification documents, including a passport, in a name nobody knew about. He could have used those to go anywhere in the world. For the first time that I could remember, I had no way to contact Jock, and no idea where he was.

  I spent an hour sitting on my patio overlooking the bay, trying to puzzle out where Jock might have gone. Something on his last mission had affected him more than anything else he had experienced in a twenty-year career. If it was bad enough that he wouldn’t even tell me, then it was really terrible. Jock had always teetered on the edge of a crisis of conscience. He was called on to do things that disturbed values that were important to him, but they were things that had to be done to protect the nation he loved. It was these things that built up to the cleansing times that came every couple of years. But this was worse than anything that had come before. This one might be the one to take him out. I couldn’t let that happen. But I had no idea what to do.

  My phone rang, snapping me out of my reverie. The caller ID was blocked. Probably Dave. I answered.

  “Is this Mr. Matt Royal?” A female voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Royal, my name is Tina Rudek. I’m a social worker at the Lower Keys Medical Center in Key West. Do you know a man named Mark Bailey?”

  “Afraid not. What’s this about?”

  “Mr. Bailey is in our emergency room. He’s unconscious and he has a card in his wallet that says that we are to call you in case of an emergency.”

  That struck me as odd. Jock wouldn’t be carrying around a card that told anybody who came across it to call me. That was
the quickest way to lead right back to Jock and his real identity. On the other hand, if he wasn’t going to be anyplace where he was in danger, he might have carried such a card in case he decided to kill himself. He’d want me to know. “Can you describe Mr. Bailey?”

  “He’s about six feet tall, probably one hundred seventy pounds, male pattern baldness, dark hair, early to mid-forties.”

  It was Jock. What the hell was he doing in a hospital in Key West? “I know him. Why is he in the ER?”

  “Sorry. I can’t go into all that, but I can tell you that his condition is not life threatening.”

  “Is he drunk?”

  She was quiet for a moment and then, almost in a whisper, said, “Very.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “Not bad.”

  “An assault?”

  “Probably.”

  There was almost nobody in the world who could take Jock in a fight, even if Jock was as drunk as a gutter alcoholic. It’d be very hard to even shoot him, but that could be done in an ambush. “Gunshot?” I asked.

  “Not bad.”

  “Where?”

  “Left shoulder.”

  “From the back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “We’re required to do that under the circumstances.”

  “I understand. Which agency?”

  “Key West PD.”

  “Are they there yet?”

  “On the way. They should be here in a few minutes.”

  “Okay. You’ll be hearing from a Monroe County sheriff’s detective named Paul Galis in a few minutes. Would you ask the Key West officers to check with the detective before they do anything? I think it’d be prudent to put a guard on your patient so that nobody slips in and kills him.”

  “My goodness. Are you serious?”

  “Ms. Rudek, this is a national security matter. I’m as serious as I can be. I’ll be on my way to Key West as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll need some insurance information on Mr. Bailey.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll clear it up when I get there.”

  “But the hospital needs—”

  “Thank you, Ms. Rudek. I’ll see you soon and clear all this up.” I cut the connection, found a number in my phone’s directory, and dialed it.