by Glenn Trust
It had all made such good sense a few months ago. Now, looking out the sixteenth floor window of his hotel room in Atlanta he wondered which one, which lion, Budroe or Swain would tire of him first. It would be a sleepless night for Richard ‘Dick’ Klineman.
8. Tilted On Its Axis
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what, Sharon?” Bob Shaklee was accustomed to Sharon Price’s habit of starting conversations midstream as if everyone else knew what she knew. Sometimes he did know. This time he did not.
“They arrested George, tonight…for murder.” Her voice trembled.
“I didn’t know, Sharon. No one told me. I wouldn’t expect them to.” He spoke calmly, knowing she was suffering. “It was just a matter of time though. You knew that. We had discussed it.”
She sobbed. Beside her on the porch as she spoke into her cell phone, Fel Tobin reached out and put an arm around her shoulders.
“I know, I know…but it’s real now…it’s happening.” She caught her breath. “What can we do? Is there anything?”
Bob was quiet, thinking. He had known that Sharon would take George’s arrest hard, and he knew that Colton Swain would have it done in such a way as to cause the most pain and public humiliation as possible.
“We can’t stop the trial, Sharon. It has to run its course. You know that.”
“I know, but…” Her voice choked off in a sobbing breath.
He knew that Sharon loved George. Everyone knew it, except maybe Sharon, who always pushed her feelings deep down inside somewhere, away from the light of day. He also knew that George without Sharon was an empty shell. They needed each other, and that was as good a definition of love as any.
“I’ll speak to the governor tomorrow. There may be something…to make it a bit easier, Sharon, but…” He paused, searching for the right words. There were none. “But you need to accept that the outcome here is not certain. It may not be good for George, no matter what we do. We have to face that.”
Sharon was quiet. She knew that once he had George, Swain was going after Bob Shaklee, in fact, George was just the precursor to Shaklee. She was piling a lot of shit on Bob’s shoulders. He had problems of his own. As always, Bob was Bob. He had made peace with his own fate; he would do what he could for others.
“Thank you, Bob…I’m sorry…it’s just that…”
“I know. Have you told him you love him?”
“Yes.”
Bob was quiet. That was a surprise. Sharon Price admitting she loved someone, needed someone. “Good. George will need more of that. I’ll call you tomorrow after I see the governor.”
“Thank you, Bob.”
Sharon sat with Fel’s arm around her in the dark on the porch for a long while. They did not speak. The loss of George was different to each of them, but they shared the same pain.
Not long before daylight, she walked back across the yard to the apartment over the barn where she and George lived. Scuffing through the grass, she remembered their walk to the porch just hours earlier…the kiss…the words.
Alone in their bed, she cried, the tears rolling wetly off her face onto the pillow. The sun was coming up over the horizon when she finally closed her eyes.
Fel sat on the porch alone, all day long, feeling that the world had somehow tilted on its axis. Things weren’t right. They might never be right again.
For the first time, that anyone could remember he did not crank up the mower that day to ride over the lawn he never stopped mowing. Sharon needed to sleep. He would see to it.
9. Going Home
A small olive and buff colored bird with orange neck banding came hopping across the patio to the two men having breakfast. It looked up at the table and the plate of fruit and began cheeping out fast rapid notes.
“What the hell is that bird? See it here every morning.” Roy Budroe took a handful of blackberries and tossed them on the ground where the bird attacked them voraciously.
“And that is why you see him every day.” Ramón Guzman sipped his black coffee and turned a cigar delicately in his fingers, letting it burn evenly. “It’s called a berry queen, reina mora. National bird of Puerto Rico.”
“Oh.” Budroe tossed some more berries in the direction of the bird and watched it scamper after them. “Hungry little bastard.”
They watched in silence as it hopped around retrieving the berries, sipping their coffee and smoking. At times like this, Guzman almost thought that he was part of Budroe’s inner circle.
“So what’s up with the Trinidad boys. You make the call? Playing the diplomat like I told you?”
Then Budroe would speak. It could be anything, something simple, but always, he would put Guzman in his place, usually just at the moment he thought he might have risen somewhat in the hierarchy.
He sighed internally and nodded. “Yes. I made the call. His name is Armando Soto. He was Rivera’s second in command in Trinidad.”
“And?”
“And he listened. He is interested.” Guzman puffed at the cigar and added. “Interested but cautious.”
“Don’t blame him. He should be.” Budroe smiled. “I wouldn’t trust him if he wasn’t…not that I trust him much anyway.”
Guzman leaned forward to look at Budroe. “Armando is a man of honor.”
“Like Rivera?” Budroe’s eyes narrowed, surprised at Guzman’s sudden directness with him.
“Rivera was different, a businessman. He made decisions in a different way.” Guzman maintained eye contact with Budroe and spoke firmly, something he rarely did. His only thought was, stop playing the gazelle to Budroe’s leopard. “Soto is a soldier. Direct. Straightforward. If he feels that he can trust you…us…then he can be trusted. In this instance, it may be more important to win his trust than the other way around. He has the distribution network ready to go.”
Guzman sat back, waiting for a response from Budroe. There was not much of one, Budroe remaining as enigmatic as always.
“Is that a fact? Win his trust. Hmm…we’ll have to see about that.”
The conversation and breakfast ended not long after that. The bird flew off with an annoyed chirp. Budroe had stopped throwing berries. There was one final order given.
“Set up a meeting.”
Guzman nodded, he had expected this. “Yes, I will, someplace neutral, safe.”
“Make it in Florida.”
“Florida?”
“Yep. Let him pick where so that he feels it is safe…neutral like you say. We’ll be all right wherever it is.”
“Florida.” Guzman nodded. “I’ll see to it. But may I ask why, Florida? I thought you would not…that perhaps it would not be wise to go back to the States just yet.”
“Sure, you can ask.” Budroe blew smoke into the warm morning air. “I want to go home. There’s business to attend to…personal business.”
10. What Else Could He Say?
“Let me get this straight. They actually arrested George, put him in handcuffs?” Johnny ‘Rince’ Rincefield was incredulous. He leaned forward over the conference phone as if that would help him better understand. As the pilot assigned to the Office of Special Investigations, he had seen George Mackey and the other members of the OSI team face some of the worst criminal offenders imaginable. To Rince, George and the others were law enforcement deities. He was just a pilot.
“Should have seen it coming.” Andy Barnes, former Atlanta Homicide detective, listened thoughtfully to Sharon’s account of the arrest.
“We did.” Bob Shaklee had gathered the team together for the regular OSI case review meeting, but there was nothing regular about it.
George was missing, arrested. Sharon was not at the top of her game.
“George and I spoke about it, knew it would happen sometime, just not when.”
“Swain’s an asshole.” Barnes looked across the conference table to Rince. “He could have had George turn himself in. He wasn’t going anywhere. George isn’t a runner.”
“He could
have, but no publicity that way.” Bob looked around the table and spoke clearly for Sharon on the phone. “This is political. Swain is running against Bell in the next election. He wants ammunition and he wants it on the record that the governor’s hero member of the OSI was arrested, fingerprinted, mug shots and all.”
“Mug shots.” Rince sank his wiry frame back into the big leather chair, almost sinking from sight. “That son of a bitch.”
“Won’t disagree with you there.” Shaklee leaned back too. The meeting was a bust. George was on everyone’s mind. “They had direct orders from the attorney general. Sandy Davies intervened, did the book-in himself, wouldn’t let anyone else. The press never got near.”
“There’ll be hell to pay for that.” Andy knew Davies and felt for him. The wrath of the attorney general was about to crash down on his head. “So what now?”
“They should be on their way to Macon about noon. George will be in the Bibb County jail until the preliminary hearing.”
“And then what?” Sharon sat alone in the apartment over the barn, the only one not in the room.
“I don’t know. Normally, they set bail at the prelim. Don’t know how that’s going to go now. Swain’s on a mission, and he’s going to wring every drop of press publicity he can out of this.”
“Anything we can do?” Andy looked at Bob. He knew the criminal justice system. There was the distinct possibility that bail would be set so high that George would never be released before the trial, and depending on the outcome of the trial, he might never be free again.
“I don’t know.” Shaklee looked at the table, searching for ideas. “Have a meeting with the governor this afternoon. I’ll speak to him about it. Maybe there’s something.”
“You have to, Bob, find a way.” Sharon’s soft sob could be heard clearly over the phone. “Don’t leave him there…please.”
“I’ll try, Sharon.”
What else could he say?
11. We Will See
“When would the meeting take place?” Sunlight glittered off the peaks of the gentle Caribbean swells. On the large, open balcony of the hotel suite, Armando Soto watched the boats in the harbor, listening with interest, and caution. Eduardo Rivera had once used the room as his base of operations. He was no longer among the living.
“Soon. The gringo is making a move. I’m not sure what it is, but it is personal. That much I have gathered.” Ramón Guzman reclined in a chair on the Playa Azul near the hacienda. Two of Budroe’s men stood nearby, out of earshot, but watching. “He would like the meeting to be on the mainland, Florida. He said for you to choose the spot.”
Soto was silent for a moment, considering. “He allows me to select a location for our...conference. He must be confident.”
“He is.”
“Is he that powerful, then?”
“He is powerful, and in Florida, the south of the United States he is at home, comfortable because it is his base. He has many men. He pays well. They will do what he asks.”
“And you?”
“My situation is…” Guzman looked at the guards, pistols tucked in the waistband of their shorts, Hawaiian shirts, barefoot, feet in the water at the edge of the surf as they smoked, always with an eye on him. “Let's say that my position here is…fluid…changeable.”
“Yes, I imagine that it is.”
Soto considered the proposal. Everything was in place. The operation could be restarted with a phone call. Rivera had been a master businessman and had organized well. They lacked inventory, the young women. The profits would be enormous, if Budroe could be trusted, and if he could deliver.
“Tell me about the death of Eduardo.”
Guzman took a deep breath. It was the question he knew would be asked eventually. After all, Soto had been closer to the old Patrón than any other.
“Budroe had Rivera’s men killed and then followed us. He wanted to take over the entire operation. When the opportunity came, he ambushed us in our car and killed Eduardo. Shot him in the head.”
“He did this himself?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. He is not above getting blood on his hands.”
“No. There are times when I think he enjoys it. He is a brutal man.”
“We are all brutal men, Ramón.” Soto considered what Guzman had told him. “And only you were spared, Ramón. Why?”
“He needs me, to make these arrangements.” Guzman pulse quickened. It was time to move Armando away from the death of Rivera and the possibility of discovering that he had a hand in it. In truth, he had been forced by Budroe, but for a man like Soto that would not be an acceptable reason for betrayal. Rivera’s organization had been intensely loyal to him.
“And when the arrangements are made?”
“Then I must find another way to be of value to him.”
“Yes, I suppose so. A man like Budroe will not keep unnecessary…baggage.”
Guzman took a deep breath. “I must be of value to him…or to someone else.” They were dangerous words.
“Someone else?" Soto was silent for a moment. "Me, you mean.”
“Yes, Armando.” Another breath to calm the tremble in his voice and his shaking hands. “I would like to come home.”
Soto was quiet, considering what Guzman had said, and the risk he had taken saying it. A sailboat sliced smoothly and silently through the harbor towards the open sea. It was a beautiful thing, the sharp bow rising and falling, cutting through the swells.
Seconds ticked away, into a minute. Soto sensed Guzman’s apprehension, silent, waiting. He let him wait while he admired the sailboat leaving Trinidad harbor for the Caribbean.
Guzman, looking out at the Atlantic from the Playa Azul, used all the self-control he could muster not to turn his eyes to Budroe’s men. Had they heard? Did they know what he had said? Did they suspect? Would they report it to the big American? Why didn’t Armando speak? When he did, his words did little to ease his anxiety.
“We will see, Ramón.”
12. We Won't Be Able To Stop It
“Turn it down.” Bill Twilley, driving the big Ford sedan with the prisoner screen across the back, was irritated. Actually, he was downright pissed off.
“Sorry.” His young partner’s hand flashed out and punched the volume button on the car radio. The radio announcer’s voice faded away along with the report of George’s arrest.
Twilley looked in the mirror. “Sorry, about that, Deputy.”
“No problem.” The prisoner turned his head from the side window and looked through the plexiglass screen, meeting Twilley’s eyes in the mirror. “And you might as well call me, George. I’m not a deputy anymore.” He chuckled. “Hell, even when I was, people just called me George, mostly. A few other things now and then."
“Okay, well sorry about that…George.” It was hard not to like the man. Didn’t seem much like any killer Twilley had ever met.
“Nothing to be sorry for. Actually I’d like to hear the rest of the report. Might as well get myself ready for what’s coming.”
Simpson looked at Twilley who nodded. His hand went back to the volume. The announcer’s voice had been replaced by a reporter on the scene, in Macon. It was the hourly news update on a country music station.
“This is Monica Larsen. I’m here in front of the Bibb County Jail in the heart of Macon where my colleagues and I are awaiting the arrival of former Pickham County Chief Deputy, George Mackey.” Voices in the background indicated that other reporters were making their hourly check-in to their own stations.
“According to a statement released by Attorney General Colton Swain, Mackey was arrested yesterday evening at his home outside Everett. The charges are murder and violation of the public trust. He spent the night in jail there and is currently enroute to Macon, in the custody of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. We don’t know exactly when he will be arriving. The GBI is staying pretty tight-lipped about the transportation details, for security reasons they have advised us.”
The announcer’s voice came back. “Thank you Monica. The murder charge, as I understand it, is for killing a suspect in a gun battle. “
“Right, Paul. The Attorney General is using pretty strong language, calling the shooting an execution. He says the GBI investigation of the incident was flawed and is on record as stating the evidence will show that Mackey gunned the suspect down in cold blood.”
“With the election only a few months away, this trial has some pretty serious implications. Any thoughts on why it is to be held in Macon?”
“Paul, I’m told that the attorney general’s staff has been seeking neutral territory. The shooting took place in Rye County, in the north Georgia mountains, and Mackey is universally considered a hero there. The situation is the same down in Pickham County. From all accounts, Macon was the best alternative, although there is no clear reason to believe he is any less well regarded there than elsewhere in the state. As you know, as part of the OSI, the ‘Hunters’ as the governor’s squad of investigators have been dubbed, Mackey and the other OSI team members have been involved in some pretty high profile cases and their investigative work has been applauded around the state.”
“Well, it is certainly going to be an interesting election campaign this fall, Monica.”
“Yes, it is, Paul.”
“That’s our own, Monica Larsen, reporting live from the Bibb County Jail, awaiting the arrival of former chief deputy, and alleged murderer, George Mackey. We’ll be right back with fifteen minutes of uninterrupted country classics, after these brief commercial messages.”
Twilley looked in the mirror again. “You’re going to get a chance to meet, Monica…and a lot of others.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“George, we won’t be able to stop it in Macon. They’ll be lined up and waiting. I just wanted you to know.”
“I understand.” George nodded, turning to look out the window again. He wondered what Sharon and Fel were doing right now.