by Glenn Trust
“Right, Charlie. Calling the sheriff’s office now. You okay?”
Charlie sat down on the running board under the open door of the pickup. He lowered his head trying not to throw up. “I don’t know.”
16. I’ll Sit In The Chair
“I’ll have my things out by tomorrow.”
They were in the conference room beside Bob’s office. Andy Rince and Bob seated around the table; Sharon was on the phone.
Andy looked at Bob. “What?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll have my things out of the office tomorrow so you can move in. I’m beat...too drained to deal with it right now.” For once, the strain showed on his face and in his voice. Bob Shaklee, the rock, everyone’s confessor must have been under enormous pressure the last several months, knowing what was coming with George’s trial, to be followed by his own. Yet, he held it, and everyone else, together, keeping them focused on the work, the cases, and the investigations.
Andy looked at him as if he had just landed from Mars. “You crazy on top of everything else? I’m not taking your office.”
“Andy, you’re the director of OSI, now. It’s yours. You should be there.”
“I’m the acting director, only until you come back.”
Bob smiled. “I might not be back.”
“What’s that mean?” Sharon’s question was almost shouted over the phone.
“It means there’s a lot of unknowns here and despite what the governor said about this being temporary, we have to acknowledge that things may not go as we planned.” He looked at Andy and Rince and leaned closer to the phone for Sharon. “It means that this Office of Special Investigations has to continue even if I am not here…if George is not here.”
“Stop!” Sharon sounded on the verge of breaking down. “I don’t want to hear that.”
“You have to hear it.” He looked at the others. “You all have to hear it and understand. George and I spoke about it, have accepted it. What this group has done is significant. You’ve made a difference. This is bigger than me and George.” He looked at Andy. “You take my office…the director’s office. It’s where you belong. If I go to trial and lose, I don’t want the governor appointing someone else, an outsider who doesn’t know us or how we operate, to head the team, to take over the office. If you’re there, acting as the director, in the director’s office, it won’t be so easy for him to send in some political appointee.”
Andy sat looking at the table. He shook his head. “I can’t do it, Bob.”
“Andy.” He waited for Andy to look him in the eyes. “Call it my last official order. Do it.”
There was silence for a full minute around the table. Finally, Sharon spoke over the phone. “He’s right, Andy. You have to take the office, not just the title.” She paused for a second thinking about her man, the big deputy enroute to the Bibb County Jail. “George would want it that way too. I know it. We talked about it…you…you’re the natural one to step up and be the next director. We all know it, except you maybe.”
Across the table, Rince looked at his friend. They had been through much together. He had seen Andy’s transformation from Atlanta murder detective to Deputy Director of the Office of Special Investigations. He nodded. “It’s the best thing, Andy. You are the director. We all want it that way.”
Andy looked up at Bob. “I’ll sit in the chair, but the office is yours when you come back.”
17. Nothing Else To Say
“You wanted to see me?” Ramón Guzman walked into the hacienda’s large central room. As always there was the sense of nervous anticipation, bordering on anxiety, at being called into the big man’s presence and not knowing why.
Budroe was reclined on a sofa, the ubiquitous cigar held between his thick fingers, a large ashtray on the floor beside him. A trim man in khaki slacks, loafers and white cotton shirt sat across from him in a cushioned rattan chair. In his fifties, he looked like a slightly older version of Guzman himself.
“Yeah, Ray. Wanted to introduce you to someone.” Budroe turned his head and motioned at the man in the chair with his cigar. “This is Mark. He is making the arrangements for the move back to Florida.”
Guzman nodded at the man and received a formal, incline of the man’s head, acknowledging the introduction. It was a Latin, or European, gesture, one with which Guzman was familiar. “I assume that Mark is not your actual name.” He looked at Budroe. “Just as Ray is not mine.”
Budroe smiled, making no response to Guzman’s comment. He lifted the cigar watching the interaction between the two. That was Budroe, Guzman thought, watching, always watching, assessing, searching for a weakness or a danger.
The man in the chair gave another bow of the head and smiled. “You are correct. I am Marques Peña, from Miami, Florida, now, formerly from Havana, Cuba.”
Guzman walked to the side table and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot that the cook kept brewing during the day. He took a seat in a chair positioned at ninety degrees from the others so that he could see them both.
Peña had waited patiently while Guzman poured his coffee. When he was settled, he spoke, without Budroe’s invitation, a fact that caught Guzman’s attention.
“And you are Ramón Guzman, from Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana. Mr. Budroe has spoken of you.”
Guzman gave his own polite bow of the head, noting that Peña did not mention what Budroe had said of him. He was not sure that he wanted to know.
“Mark…Marques…” Budroe nodded at Peña, showing him a deference he never used with Guzman. “…will be arranging our move to the mainland and handling…other details.”
“I see.” Guzman sipped his coffee. He had a good idea what the other details were that Peña would see to on Budroe’s behalf. “May I ask when the move will take place?”
“Sure, you can ask.” Budroe's face lost the bemused look he usually wore when dealing with him. Serious, bordering on threatening, his eyes bored into Guzman. “The move will take place when I tell you.” He nodded at Peña. “Or when Marques does. You will be working closely with him.”
“Yes.” Guzman set the coffee cup on the side table, attentive to the instructions. He was suddenly on dangerous ground. A new member of the group had been added. It was important to understand the dynamics, the power this man wielded with, and for, Budroe.
“If Marques, gives you instructions, consider it an order from me.” Budroe’s eyes met Guzman’s. “¿Comprendes?”
Guzman nodded. “I understand.” As usual, Budroe’s bluntness made the relationship abundantly clear.
“Good.” Budroe blew a plume of smoke that wafted up to the slowly turning ceiling fan and then dispersed through the rafters of the large room. “One more thing. When you know where the meeting will take place, with your Trinidad boys, with Armando, you report it to Marques immediately.”
“I understand.” Guzman sat waiting for further instructions. There were none.
18. Just George
Watching on the television in his office, Colton Swain was somewhat pleased with the perp walk at the Bibb County jail. It almost made up for Sandy Davies’ interference in his plans in Pickham County.
Seated in the office with Swain, Richard Klineman felt his gut tighten at the sight of Mackey. He hated the man, had hated him when he was a simple deputy working for Klineman. George Mackey was everything Klineman was not and could never be.
“Okay, here we go, George.” Bill Twilley brought the car to a stop and looked at the press crowding the barricades that the Bibb county deputies had lined up. They provided a narrow path to the building for Mackey and the GBI agents. “Sorry, but this is not going to be pretty.”
The agents exited the car. Young John Simpson opened the rear door, so that George could step out while he looked at the crowd, the cameras, the questions that were already being shouted in their direction. New on the job, arresting Mackey had just been an assignment, one he wanted to see through successfully for his superiors. Now, seeing the m
edia jostling and pushing for position at the barricades and in the midst of it, Mackey calm and resolute, he felt guilty.
George saw the look on his face. “Don’t worry, John. You do your job. They do theirs. That’s how this works.” He smiled. “Me all I have to do is walk from here to there.” He nodded towards the open door of the jail. “Hundred feet or so. Piece of cake, even for an old deputy like me.” Twilley had come around the car to join them. George looked at him and said, “Let’s do it, Bill.”
The three made their way along the narrow walkway the deputies had laid out to the building. Cameras whirred and followed them. Shutters clicked. Reporters thrust microphones across the barricades into their path trying to get George Mackey on tape. Questions were shouted.
“Do you have any comment about the Attorney General’s case against you?”
“Any words to say to the public about your innocence?”
“What were your thoughts as you pulled the trigger and executed the suspect?”
“Deputy Mackey, did you murder anyone?”
George walked calmly through the press gauntlet. He made no reply to the questions thrown at him and had no comment. The press was banned from inside the building, while he was processed into custody.
Watching him disappear inside, one reporter made notes that she would use in her broadcast report later that evening. Coupled with the video images her camera operator had captured, her words would describe for the viewers, George Mackey’s erect posture and calm pace to the building. With the image of him passing through the heavy doors, her final words were, “Deputy George Mackey, showed no fear or anger. The only way to describe the look I saw on his face, the same look you all saw on the video, was a look of peace. George Mackey was at peace as he walked, handcuffed, into the Bibb County Jail.” There was a dramatic pause. “Now back to you.”
Colton Swain felt let down by the perp walk. The agents had followed his orders, but somehow, it was not as satisfying as he had hoped. Mackey had been…above it all. The thought angered him...above it all. He would see how above it all George Mackey was when he faced Colton Swain in court, on trial for murder…for his life.
In the living room of the old house, Sharon sat beside Fel on a threadbare sofa, watching on an old television. Hands clutching each other's, they were speechless, blinking at the close-up shots of the face of the man they both loved. Tears rolled down their cheeks. It seemed that neither had shed so many before in their lives.
The cameras jostled as the operators moved around for better angles, but George was solid, steady. He was just George.
19. All The Earmarks
Sandy Davies found Mike Darlington kneeling in the grass near the body of the drug courier. A marker had been placed there. An evidence technician from the GBI leaned over and took several close-up shots of the marker and the evidence.
“What you got?” Davies stopped a few feet away, careful not to disturb anything that might be lying in the grass.
Darlington looked over his shoulder. “Shell casing. Looks like a .32.” He motioned at the body where another technician was snapping away rapidly with a camera. “That would about match the size of the hole in his head.”
“Any idea who it is?”
“Yeah.” Darlington stood. “Know exactly who it is.” He pulled a notepad from his pocket. “Carl Stevens. Has an address in central Florida. Had his wallet and ID still on him.” He put the notepad back in his shirt pocket. “Whoever did it wasn’t too worried about us finding out…or they were in a hurry.”
Sandy walked carefully towards the body and peered over the tech’s shoulder, the flash from the camera, making the red gore of the man’s face stand out in brilliant detail. The bullet hole in his forehead was clearly visible, along with the crawling maggots and claw and teeth marks that had ripped at his face.
“Any ideas?” Sandy looked at Mike.
“Well, it’s been pretty quiet since George and the OSI broke up the human trafficking operation in Meacham County.”
Sandy nodded. They both had the same unspoken thoughts. Brutal…grisly…efficient. There was no proof, but the murder had all the earmarks. Could Roy Budroe have made it back to Pickham without their knowing?
20. Speechless
The house sat on a dead end street in a shabby part of Valdosta, on the outskirts of town. It looked deserted. The blinds were drawn. The yard was choked with high grass and weeds, and it was clear that local dogs used it as the place to do their business away from their own yards.
Henry Schulls and his men approached on foot. Two pickups and a motorcycle were parked around the corner at the end of the block, out of site. Brenda, biker girl, sat behind the wheel of one pickup keeping an eye on the vehicles.
“Watch where you step.” Henry spoke softly as they came across the yard. “Dog shit everywhere. Don’t want none of it in my truck.”
The afternoon sun beat down warmly. Flies buzzed over the dog turds in the yard. The street was quiet, deserted. The houses next door and across the street were empty, abandoned. No mystery why this particular house had been selected by its owners. There was no one around to pay any attention to who entered or left the ramshackle structure or what time of day it was when they did.
Henry waited until two of the men went around to the back of the house. When everyone was in place, he stepped up onto the dilapidated porch and nodded at Big Luke.
Swinging the sixteen-pound sledgehammer he had carried from the pickups, Luke hit the doorknob and latch once, hard. The door nearly burst off its hinges.
At the sound of the sledgehammer hitting the door, the two men in the rear kicked in the back door. Within seconds, there were five armed intruders standing over the three young men sprawled on the sofa and floor of the dumpy living room. Beer cans were piled up in one corner where they had been tossed as a way of disposal. A large flat screen television was on, tuned to the Cartoon Channel. The overpowering odor of green marijuana filled the house.
“Check it out.” Schulls nodded to one of the men who had come in the back door.
The man was gone less than a minute. He came back into the room grinning. “They got that shit stacked to the ceiling in that little bedroom off the hall. All baled up nice for us.”
The three men, not much more than boys really, were speechless, terrified. They watched the men with guns who had seemed just to appear over them in a crash of noise. None spoke, afraid to draw any attention from the invaders.
Schulls took a cell phone from his pocket hit a speed dial number and spoke. “Come in now.”
A minute later, Brenda backed one of the pickups up the tiny driveway and then across the yard to the smashed front door. While Henry and Luke watched the three boys, the others wasted no time, moving the bales of grass from the bedroom and loading them neatly into the back of the pickup. The process took less than five minutes. They were very efficient, and Henry nodded his approval.
Luke motioned the boys up from their reclining positions. Lined up in the living room, trembling, eyes staring at the floor, they worked hard not to look Henry or any of the others in the eye. They stood there for a minute. It seemed like an eternity. Finally, the one on the left raised his eyes, a pleading look of terror meeting Schull’s gaze.
Henry smiled and nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the .32 automatic.
The boy shook his head slowly, realizing what was about to happen. He managed to say, “No.”
Henry pointed the pistol at the boy on the right and squeezed the trigger. The crack of the pistol was deafening in the small house. Outside in the yard where Brenda waited in the pickup, it was barely audible, just a pop, like a firecracker had gone off.
Without hesitation, Henry’s arm moved smoothly to the left, and the pistol cracked angrily a second time. His sobbing whimpers abruptly ended, the boy in the middle crumpled to the floor beside his partner, a neat hole drilled in his forehead.
The boy on the left waited, trembling, eyes closed.
“Open your eyes.”
Slowly, squinting, afraid of what he would see, the boy cracked his eyelids.
Henry nodded, flipped the safety on and put the pistol in his pocket. “You work for us, now. You understand?”
The young man nodded emphatically.
“Good.” Schulls looked around the room. We’ll set you up some place better than this shit hole. Bring in a better clientele.” He turned his head back to the trembling boy. “That meet with your approval?”
Speechless, the boy nodded again and then pissed his pants.
21. Play It Again
It was late, but the light was on in the conference room between the sheriff’s and chief deputy’s offices. The administrative staff was gone. Mike Darlington was still there. So was Sandy Davies.
Davies pulled the door to his office closed, stopped at the conference room and looked in.
“What’s up, Mike?”
Darlington had a file folder open on the table, reports scattered across the conference table’s surface and the television remote control in his hand. Leaning forward, he peered intently into the screen mounted on the wall.
“Not much, Sandy.” He motioned towards the television. “Had the GBI get the video recording from the Department of Transportation.”
“Why?” Sandy walked in and sat down across from Mike.
“I don’t know…a hunch…” His face cringed.
Like most cops, he hated the word. Investigations were based on facts, evidence. There might be some intuitive work needed to develop leads, but ‘hunches’ had a mystical connotation as if there were something psychic and otherworldly involved. There was not. There was only slogging investigative work and the general common sense of the investigator. If that constituted a hunch, so be it, he had a hunch…but he still hated the word.