She had left sometime after four, even though he had offered to sleep on the couch if she wanted to rest before driving. She’d declined the offer and seemed none the worse today.
Tasker took a break and walked back to the porch.
“What’re you working on, Professor?”
The older man smiled. “Just surveys and sketches of my dig. My benefactor wants an idea of how far the artifacts might extend from my current spot.”
“Does it look big?”
“If I can keep digging, I’m sure I can show that a whole village existed here, far east of where everyone says were the original settlements of the Seminoles who fled the war.”
“What could stop you from digging?”
“You name it. Time. Money. The university’s priorities.”
Tasker smiled and said, “I’m just glad you’re here for now. I’d hate to think about the possible neighbors I could have.” He meant it about the nice college instructor, but when he heard a car door and a moment later saw Billie Tower’s smiling face, he knew there were other reasons, too.
Renee Chin kissed her grandmother on the cheek and headed into the living room crowded with her family. They all shared a common name, the light skin and oval eyes from a paternal great-grandfather no one had ever met in person. She plopped down on the long couch in the fashionable house located an hour south of Manatee prison near US 27 in the town of Weston. It was about ten miles from the house in Miramar where Renee had grown up. After her four years in Tampa on a scholarship at the University of South Florida, Renee’s parents had used the money they’d accumulated from their small but swanky restaurant, Black China, to buy the expansive house here in the upper-class neighborhood in western Broward County. Although the menu and brochures for the restaurant had said it was owned by Albert Chin, no one had ever suspected that the elderly black man who did the books was actually the owner. He had been careful twenty years ago to hire a head chef named Chin. He had found that unlike in the old joke, a Chinese phone book didn’t have that many Chins, and so when he found one who could cook, he held on to him.
Renee leaned against her mother, who patted her head.
“Child, you didn’t have anything to do with the escape from Manatee Friday night, did you?”
“No, ma’am, not really. I was out in a field looking for him when they shot him.”
“How a girl as smart and beautiful as you expects to find a man out in that hole, I’ll never know. I mean, no decent men ever come through town out there, do they?”
Renee smiled slyly. “You’d be surprised, Mama.”
Her mother sighed. “Not a prison guard.”
“No, ma’am, a FDLE agent.”
Tasker rolled up on his old house off Forest Hill Boulevard at about six o’clock Sunday evening. Both the girls had dozed off in the car. Part of it was all the running around they had done and part was that he had blown off their bedtime, allowing them to watch all of Saturday Night Live before falling asleep in his bed. He had even felt confident enough to consider asking Billie Towers to have dinner with them Saturday night, but then decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to have a woman eat with the girls yet.
As he stopped the car, he saw his ex-wife at the front door with someone. She leaned over and kissed the man just as Tasker turned off the car, and then he saw it was Nicky Goldman, her on-again, off-again boyfriend. He felt his stomach turn in a visceral reaction to seeing the attorney receive any affection from his gorgeous ex-wife.
He gently woke the girls and stepped out of his Monte Carlo as Donna walked toward him and Nicky hustled over to his Porsche parked in the street.
“Am I early?” he asked, eyeing the lawyer hop into the sleek red convertible.
Donna smiled like no one had just come from her house. “Nope, right on time.”
“Then you and Nicky were running late.”
Her smile dropped off her face. “No, we were right on time, too. I’ve never hidden my relationship with Nicky from you.”
“No, but you never flaunted it, either.”
“That wasn’t flaunting.”
“Then where was Nicky running off to? He didn’t even say hi.”
“You make him nervous.”
“Nervous?”
“Okay, you scare him.”
“What’d I do to scare him?”
“Killed two men, spent years on the SWAT team, stand four inches taller than him and generally treat him like something stuck to your shoe.”
Tasker shrugged. “That’s fair.”
The girls retrieved their backpacks stuffed with clothes and gave their mother lazy hugs.
“What’d you guys do to get so tired?”
Kelly said, “Daddy made us run after a Frisbee for hours.”
Emily added, “Yeah. We ran and ran and didn’t stay up to watch Saturday Night Live.”
Donna gave Tasker a stern look and said, “You and Tina Fey. You need to write her a fan letter or something.”
He smiled and walked them all back to the neat one-story cinder block house.
Kelly said, “We played a history trivia game with Professor Kling and Billie. They’re smart.”
Donna said, “The man staying next to you?”
Tasker nodded as the girls darted into the house.
“Who’s Billy?”
“His assistant,” Tasker said, keeping a straight face.
“Is it confusing having two Billys around?”
“Not at all,” Tasker said emphatically.
thirteen
Tasker had spent the entire morning reviewing logs of the trustees to see if anyone had been assigned to the area around lockdown the day Dewalt had been killed.
As he made notes next to his scattered papers on the longest table he could find in the administration building, he heard a smooth, deep voice say, “Looks like you’re preparing for trial.”
Tasker turned to see Luther Williams standing in the doorway to the library. The older, solid black man approached Tasker carefully, not wanting to cause alarm, then sat at the end of the table.
Tasker pushed back the slush pile of time sheets and logs he had been skimming and looked up at Luther, giving him his full attention.
Luther smiled, showing the expensive dental work that Tasker had seen so many times on TV when the guy had been explaining how he and the head of the Committee for Community Relief were going to save the city of Miami.
Luther said, “I did not intend to make you nervous.” His FM announcer’s voice resonated through the paneled room.
Tasker smiled. “But you can understand why you’d cause me some concern.”
“You, sir, have nothing to worry about. You did your job, treated me properly and didn’t compound my misery in court. The result of being here is of my own making.”
“You still sound like a lawyer. You should have represented yourself.”
“I was a lawyer longer than anything else in my life. I suspect I shall always speak like this. As for representing myself, I’m sure you’ve heard that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.”
Tasker nodded.
“In my case, I had a fool for a lawyer. That young public defender wanted me locked up till his kids were in a nursing home. And part of me understood why. That being said, I studied the plea and told the young man what needed to be said in court.” He placed his thick forearms on the table. “And for that brilliant legal maneuvering, I am an orderly to men who can barely read and take orders from men who don’t care.” He rubbed the light ridged stripe of scar tissue on his elbow. “Still can’t believe this old scar gave me away.”
Tasker smiled. “The fact that you were trying to shoot me at the time tipped me off you weren’t an attorney.”
“Yes, I apologize for my unfortunate actions. You were not the target of my displeasure. In here, however, there are no facades. You are who you are and do what must be done. In here it’s more important that I was raised on the streets of East St
. Louis and don’t care what I do to survive. That’s the real me. I may still speak like a recipient of a Juris Doctor degree but the reality is that I left school in eighth grade after I poked out my teacher’s eye for not showing me respect. Manatee is the last stop for men such as myself.”
Tasker nodded and considered the statement, then said, “Tell me something I don’t know about Manatee.”
Luther Williams smiled and said, “There are more criminals here than are listed on the state rolls.”
Renee Chin was happy that Bill Tasker had walked with her across the compound. Not that she was scared, she just liked the company. It was also nice seeing him early on a Monday morning after such a rough Friday night. He was eventually going to visit lockdown and the psych ward, but had stopped at Dorm A with her to retrieve Leroy Baxter’s personal belongings.
Tasker sat on the made-up bunk in the empty dorm as Renee used her master key to open Baxter’s locked chest next to his bunk.
Tasker asked, “They keep everything they own in those chests?”
“The industrious ones even rent out space to the other inmates.”
“What’s in the other chest without a lock?”
“Clothes. The smaller chest with the padlocks can hold your so-called valuables.”
“Who has the keys?”
“Any sergeant and above. You never know when we might have to gain access fast.”
“Anything new on the escape?”
She shook her head as she poked through a dish containing some coins and jewelry with a pencil. “He didn’t strike me as ambitious enough to make an attempt, but you never know.” She was about to say something else when she took a closer look at a small silver pendant. The front had the profile of a boy’s face. She was careful to handle it only by its edges. When she turned it over, she froze. In tiny letters, it said, Ricky Dewalt, Third Grade.
She handed it to Tasker, who also held it only by the sides. “Take a look.” She watched as he studied it without changing expression or giving a clue as to what he was thinking.
He handed it back and said calmly, “I think we have our first decent clue.”
“I better let the warden know.”
“I’d wait.”
“For what?”
“I’ll run it by the Palm Beach lab and let them see if they can lift a print. Only take a few days. Meanwhile I’ll interview the officers from the psych ward and any other trustees.”
She considered it and said, “Okay. You’re right, better to be prepared.”
She liked how he thought on his feet.
Professor Warren Kling had spent Sunday and most of Monday handling administrative matters. He didn’t mind that kind of stuff, but greatly preferred writing about the history of Florida and in particular the history of the original people like the Tequesta and Apalachee or the Seminole tribe. Most people thought the Seminoles were native to Florida, not realizing they were a product of forced relocation and war. Most of the Seminoles were from the Creek Indian nation and others from areas north of Florida’s panhandle. Trying to get an idea of how Osceola had felt when he was captured while under a flag of truce, or why the Spanish had been so cruel to the natives upon their arrival, was what Warren Kling lived for. Now he loved finding little traces of evidence to support ideas. This wasn’t his first dig, but it was the first one he had been in charge of and so far the most productive. The lab techs at the university were chomping at the bit to get the artifacts and carbon-date them, then analyze what had gone into making them. The DNA scientists would test the bone fragments and then Professor Kling would write the text that tied them all together.
He bumped along the narrow trail off the road to the apartment complex in his Ford Ranger, whistling the tune to Hogan’s Heroes that had crept into his head at some point over the last three days. Maybe it was hearing the TV the FDLE agent next door let play all night while he slept. The guy loved the tiny local TV station that played old shows. The professor recognized the theme to Hill Street Blues and then late in the night he’d hear Hogan’s Heroes.
The state cop sure seemed like a squared away young man. His daughters were well behaved and a lot of fun and Billie Towers seemed smitten with him. The professor worried about his assistant. She often seemed preoccupied. He attributed it to her youth. She meant well. He just hoped she didn’t mean to stay at UF for graduate school.
He skidded to a stop in the limestone-and-weed parking space in front of his apartment. It was the middle of a workday and no one was around. Only two other apartments were in use besides Bill Tasker’s place. An environmental protection scientist was there analyzing soil and a Department of Agriculture employee was in the last apartment while he taught a series of classes on crop rotation. The professor was just as happy no one was home. He intended to take a serious nap. He had completed an important phase of his work and had earned a quiet afternoon.
He hopped past two of the stairs on the porch, opened his front door, which he never bothered to lock, walked into the front room without looking up—then froze as he came face-to-face with a man. They stared at each other. The professor looked around at the shambles of his destroyed apartment, then back up at the man.
“What are you doing?”
The man didn’t answer.
The professor caught some movement out of the corner of his eye and saw another man step into the room from the narrow hallway. This man had something in his hand.
The first man barked, “Not yet.”
But he was too late.
fourteen
In the admin building, Renee Chin started to look for Bill Tasker, not because of work, she had to admit to herself, but because of him. The FDLE agent had been on her mind since Friday night after the shooting. He had a subtle sense of humor and didn’t spend time trying to impress people. She liked that.
She turned toward the library and saw Luther Williams heading out the side door with a few books in his hands. Tasker sat at the conference table in the outer room.
As she approached him Renee asked, “Were you talking to Luther?”
“Yeah, just catching up.” He looked up from his work.
“He’s a dangerous guy.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And you locked him up?”
He shrugged. “He and some others tried to steal some cash and I got caught in the middle.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“ ‘Scary’ is a better word.”
“I heard someone recognized him as an escaped con from Missouri. That was you?”
“A FDLE analyst had made up a list of missing persons and escaped convicts from a certain time period. I had the list and descriptions. When we arrested Luther for a shoot-out in Aventura, I noticed the prominent scar on his elbow and remembered it from one of the descriptions, that was all. Turns out that was exactly who he was.”
She sat next to him, then scooted the chair closer. She looked at all the reports. “How’s it going? Anything to liaison with yet?”
He looked out over the scattered papers. “Not on any of this.”
She hesitated, wanting to ask him out, and was about to say something when she heard a wail, well off the prison grounds.
In the distance, to the west, she could hear sirens. It sounded like a police car and the town’s only fire rescue truck.
“I wonder what that could be? Sounds like it’s coming from town.”
Tasker smiled. “Maybe a cow got loose.”
They both laughed, but she felt a twinge of anxiety.
Tasker packed up his work a few minutes after Renee had finished flirting with him. He checked out with the admin desk officer and decided to knock off for the day.
He cruised the three and a half miles to his state-owned apartment in about five minutes. As soon as he turned down the unpaved road with the official Department of Transportation sign for Dead Cow Lane he knew something was wrong. He could see the red light from a fire rescue truck reflecting off the stalks
of cane along the road. When he pulled into the clearing where the parking lot bumped into the 1950s musty, wooden apartment complex, he saw three police vehicles, an ambulance, the fire rescue cart and an unmarked vehicle.
He stopped his Monte Carlo on the rear track of the gravel-and-lime parking lot and bolted from the car in a fast walk to the police cars. A young uniformed cop who spent too much time on the bench press and not enough on his attitude met him behind a cruiser with his hand already up.
“No one can come in.” He was firm and obviously liked it.
Tasker said, “I live here.”
“So?” said the cop, and gave him a short shove to make his point.
Tasker felt his blood rise, then saw Billie Towers at the rear of another cruiser, crying, while another, older cop offered her a tissue.
Tasker snapped, “What the hell is going on here?”
“Police business.”
Tasker reached for his wallet in frustration.
The movement spooked the cop, who stepped back and put his right hand on his holstered Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter. “Slow it down, mister.”
Then Tasker heard another voice from the porch.
“What the hell?”
Tasker looked up to see Rufus Goodwin take all three steps in one bound and arrive at the cop’s side in a flash.
“Harold, what’re you doing, you fucking moron? He’s a fucking FDLE agent.”
The bulky cop looked stricken. He raised his hands in front of him. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”
Tasker was still hot. “You damn well knew I lived here. That’s no way to treat people.” He turned to Rufus. “What happened here?”
Rufus looked at the ground, then in a halting tone said, “The guy who lived there, the UF professor, was killed.”
“What? How?”
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