Bitter Legacy

by H. Terrell Griffin

  I went to the safe in my closet and retrieved my Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol. I inserted the seventeen-round clip and placed the gun on the bedside table. I wasn’t expecting trouble, but strangers were trying to kill my friend and me. It never hurt to add a little safety factor to the situation. The Sig was just that.

  I crawled into bed and turned out the light. The morning had started off with somebody trying to blow me up. It hadn’t gotten a whole lot better during the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow would be better. I drifted off to sleep thinking about James Baggett, the biker gang honcho. And Detective J.D. Duncan.

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I awoke from a sound sleep, instantly alert. A noise of some sort. Without thinking about it, I had slipped into the sleep of the soldier, a guarded slumber, a part of the sleeping brain alert for danger, for sounds in the night, ready to spring into action with the first perception of threat. I couldn’t identify the sound at first, but it had been enough to fire up those old responses, kick in the adrenal glands, sharpen the senses.

  I glanced at the clock by the phone. Three a.m. The deepest part of the night, the time when predators pounce. I lay completely still. My Sig Sauer was on the bedside table, loaded, a round in the chamber. The .38 was still in its holster on a chair across the room. I closed my eyes, trying to sharpen my hearing, straining for the sound again, trying to place what I’d heard, dredge it up from the memory banks. It came again, a small sound in the night, a slight gurgle, a swish of an oar biting into the surface. The almost silent push of a boat through water. Somebody was on the bay, close to my house, coming quietly, stealthily.

  I slipped out of bed, picked up my pistol, eased myself next to the window overlooking the bay, peeked out. The dark was intense, no moon, no stars. There must be a cloud cover, I thought. I couldn’t see anything. I tried to let my eyes adjust, but they were as dilated as they were going to get. My night vision was at its peak. The sound came again. Sibilant, quiet, barely audible, closer.

  Then, quiet, stillness. I listened intently, my ears attuned to the slightest nuance of sound. There was nothing. I decided I’d been hearing ghost sounds in the night, sounds that weren’t there. I went back to bed, but lay awake, listening. No other sound came and I drifted off to sleep.

  I awoke with a start, the sound of voices, a loud angry crash penetrating my sleeping brain. “Son of a bitch,” screamed Jock from the front of the house. I flinched, grabbed the Sig and ran toward the noise. I heard sounds of struggle, grunts, loud exhalations, a cry of pain.

  I threw open the door to my room, hit the hall light switch, pistol in front of me, ready to shoot. Jock was standing in the middle of the short hallway wearing only his undershorts. He was breathing quickly, panting, letting the panic drain from his system. A man lay on the floor, still, his head at a strange angle. He was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and black sneakers. A black watch cap covered his head. A large hunting knife lay on the floor near his outstretched hand.

  “He’s dead,” said Jock.

  “Where’s Logan?”

  “In his room, I guess.”

  I heard glass break and a shot rang out from Logan’s room. The door was only five feet from Jock’s. We moved fast, taking up a position on either side of the door.

  “Logan,” I called.

  “It’s clear, Matt,” replied Logan. “Come on in.”

  I pushed the door open, carefully. Logan was still in bed, his Beretta in his hand. A windowpane was shattered and another had a neat hole in it.

  “What’re you doing?” I asked.

  “Somebody was trying to get in.”

  I went to the window, looked outside. Nothing. “Are you sure, Logan?”

  “I’m sure.”

  There was a pounding on the front door. Steve Carey was calling my name. I went to open it. Steve had his pistol out. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.

  “Logan took a shot at somebody trying to break in. Jock killed a guy in the hallway.”

  “Oh shit. I’d better call the chief.”

  “Let’s check the back first,” I said. “I think somebody was coming in by boat.”

  We moved toward the patio door. Three of us wearing just under-shorts, all carrying pistols. Logan was bringing up the rear. I turned on the outside floods. I could see my boat rocking gently in her slip as the breeze buffeted her. A kayak was floating just off my dock, no one in it. That was the noise I’d heard earlier. I looked at my watch, twenty minutes had passed since the boat sounds had awakened me. The sliding glass door leading to the patio was open. I knew I’d closed and locked it before we went to bed.

  “I heard them coming in, I think,” I said. “I couldn’t see anything and didn’t hear anymore, so I went back to sleep. There’s a kayak out there that probably brought the guy in.”

  “I’m telling you, somebody was outside my window,” Logan said. “He woke me up trying to get in.”

  “Let’s go see,” said Steve.

  I flicked off the floods. Got a flashlight. “We’re not going out there as targets,” I said.

  We waited for a few minutes to let our eyes adjust to the dark. We went out the front door, fast, hunkered down, pistols ready. We weren’t sure if there were other men with nasty intent out there. It was quiet.

  We turned the corner of the house on the side where the bedroom windows were. I saw something crumpled in the hedge that ran along the side of the house. I put the light on it. A body.

  “Call the chief,” said Logan.

  “Let me check him first,” said Steve. He went to the body, leaned over, put his fingers to the man’s neck, shook his head. “Good shot Logan. He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The first cruiser to arrive rolled down the street, slowing as he reached my house. No siren or blue lights. A Longboat Key Police captain parked and unwound from the car. He walked over to where we were standing at the corner of the house.

  “What’s up, Steve?” the captain asked.

  “Somebody tried to take these guys out. Both intruders are dead. Chief’s on his way.”

  “The dispatcher said you had a couple of dead bodies.”

  “One out here and one in the hall by the bedrooms.”

  “Show me.”

  We walked to where the body lay on the grass beside the house. I shined my flashlight on him. Steve did the same. The other cop knelt down, looking closely at the dead man. “I don’t know him. You guys recognize him?”

  “Never saw him before,” I said.

  “Looks like a biker,” said Steve. “Got those boots, lots of tattoos on his arms. Doesn’t look like he’s had a haircut in a couple of years.”

  “The guy in the house looks about the same,” said Jock.

  “What happened to this one?” asked the captain.

  Logan spoke up. “A noise at the window woke me up. The guy was standing there with a gun. I don’t think he’d noticed that I was in the bed. Then I heard Jock scream and the one outside broke the glass with his gun butt. I figured he was coming in, so I shot him.”

  “Good shot,” said Steve. “We’ve had more dead people at this house in the past two days than we’ve had on the whole island in years.”

  Another cruiser rolled up and stopped. The cop got out, came over to us. “Can I do anything Steve?” he asked.

  “No. The CSI guy’s on his way and I called the chief. They should be along pretty quickly. I think the excitement’s over. You go on.”

  Both cops left and we went into the house to the hall outside Jock’s room. The light was still on. Steve bent down to look more closely at the body. “You’re right Jock. This guy looks a lot like the other one. What happened?”

  “I heard the door to the patio and when I went to look this guy was coming at me with a knife. I broke his neck.”

  “Where’d you learn that stuff?

  “Here and there,” said Jock. “I work for the government.”

  Steve
grinned. “Well, that explains it.”

  The weak light of dawn seeped over our island, illuminating the crime-scene tape that surrounded my house. A neighbor wearing shorts and a T-shirt came out his front door to retrieve his newspaper, a cup of coffee in his hand. He glanced at the tape, the three police cars parked in front of my house, the coroner’s meat wagon, the chief and I in conversation at the edge of the property. “You okay, Matt?” he called.

  “Yeah, Robbie. I’m fine. Sorry for the disturbance.”

  “Carol thought she heard a firecracker early this morning. Woke me up to tell me about it. Was it more than that?”

  “Afraid so. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Glad you’re okay.”

  Lester grinned. “I think your new neighbors are getting used to living with you.”

  “Who knows? They’ll be coming after me with pitchforks soon if we don’t get this mess cleaned up and stopped.”

  I’d gone over the whole thing with the chief and given J. D. Duncan a statement. Jock and Logan were in the living room giving their statements. The CSI guy had finished in the house and waited for daylight to begin his assessment of the dead man in the yard. He was meticulous in his examination of the body. He took a number of photographs, his camera flashing. When he finished, he patted my shoulder. “They came in from the patio. Busted the lock on your sliding glass door, Matt. You better get somebody to take care of that.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get somebody in today.”

  Lester said, “I think I’m through here. You want some breakfast?”

  “Sure. Got time for us to get cleaned up first? I need a shower. Bad.”

  “I noticed. The Blue Dolphin doesn’t open until eight anyway.”

  I laughed. “Screw you, Chief.”

  Jock, Logan, Bill Lester, and I sat at a table in the restaurant, picking at the remainder of our food. Tracy brought another round of coffee, tomato juice for Logan. J.D. had joined us as we finished our breakfast. She ordered coffee and a plateful of pancakes and sausages and dug in like a starving lumberjack.

  “Hungry?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I missed dinner last night.”

  “We had popcorn at Tiny’s. You should’ve come with us.”

  She gave me one of those looks that women seem to keep in their arsenal. It reflected disgust, humor, and patience, all in one second. As if she knew she was dealing with inferior beings, that men had not evolved at the same rate as women. She was probably right.

  Bill blew over the top of his cup. “Did you get anything, J.D.”

  She nodded. Chewed the rest of the sausage, made a gesture that signaled she’d talk as soon as she swallowed. “Steve Carey canvassed the neighborhood and may have come up with something. The couple who live at the end of Broadway, right across the street from Moore’s, heard noise a little before three this morning. Some guys had pulled into Moore’s parking lot in a pickup and unloaded a kayak. They launched right there at Broadway.”

  “Any description?” Jock asked.

  “Not much. Said there were two of them, dressed in dark clothes. The homeowner thought they were probably fishermen getting an early start. They launched the boat and paddled off into the bay.”

  “Is the truck still there?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Stolen last night in Bradenton.”

  “I’m betting there was nothing to help us on either the truck or the kayak.” I said.

  “You got that right. No prints. Nothing. We’re thinking that they knew Steve was out front, so they decided to come in the back way, over the bay.”

  “What about the one outside Logan’s window?” I asked.

  J.D. shook her head. “Maybe he was the backup in case one of you heard the other one coming in the door. Or maybe he was planning to shoot Logan as soon as he heard the intruder shoot Matt. Who knows? These aren’t the brightest guys on the planet and they probably didn’t realize Jock was there.”

  “Any IDs on the dead guys?” Jock asked.

  “Not yet. We’re running prints. Should have something today.”

  We started to get up from the table. Jock had gone to pay the check. I thought I saw something in J.D.’s face, an entreaty to stay perhaps, or maybe just a grimace at our bad manners in leaving while she was still eating. I sat back down.

  “Y’all go ahead,” I said. “I need to talk to J.D. I’ll catch a ride back with her.”

  When they were gone, J.D. said, “I’m glad you stayed. I wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I was a little pissy and I apologize.”

  “Apology accepted, but you were actually a lot pissy.”

  She smiled. “Probably so. I’m sorry. I tend to be a bit of a control freak, and I’m still trying to get my legs under me in this new job. Then I find a strange assortment of war heroes and a shadowy government employee who seems to have a lot of power with the DEA, and they want to go off and start a shooting war, and they won’t tell me what they’re doing, and I get very concerned.”

  “You should. We haven’t been fair with you.”

  “What’s going on, Matt?”

  “Jock told me last night that I needed to bring you inside. He checked you out.”

  “Checked me out? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that he wanted to know a little about you before he brought you into our little circle.”

  Her temper flared. “Screw him. Where does he get off ‘checking me out?’”

  “Calm down, J.D. Jock works for one of the most secretive agencies in our government. They do a lot of things that nice people don’t want to do. They do these things to protect our country, to make sure that the bad guys don’t take over.”

  “So what? That gives him the right to dig into my personal life?”

  “Only because he wanted to let you know who he really is and what we’re planning to do. He had to make sure you were who you seemed to be.”

  She seemed a little mollified, but her dander was still up. “How deep did he go into my background?”

  “Nothing real personal. He didn’t look at your medical records or school grades or check porn sites for your picture.”

  She looked shocked, then laughed and threw her napkin at me. “I’m not on those sites, you pervert.”

  “I know. I already ran a search.”

  She laughed again. A magical sound and my heart did a little lurch.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s the deal. You’re not going to like it because you’re a cop and cops are programmed to do everything by the book. We don’t always follow the book. Hell, we don’t even have a book to look at. But we do get results when we have to. Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll shut up.”

  “No. Tell me. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation. And I promise I won’t interfere.”

  “We’re going after the biker chief on Thursday night. We’ve got no grounds to arrest him, and even if we did, he’d lawyer up immediately. We’d never find out who’s trying to kill us. I guarantee that Jock will get the bastard to talk.”

  She winced. “Do I want to know how he’ll do that?”

  “No.”

  “How are you going to get him?”

  “We’re going to walk into the bar he owns and ask him nicely to come with us.”

  “Right.”

  “And when he refuses, we’re going to drag his ass out of there.”

  “Matt, I’ve dealt with those biker dudes. They’re not going to let you walk out of a bar with their leader.”

  “I don’t expect them to.”

  “How then?”

  “We’ll use a little leverage.”

  “I don’t guess I need to know about that either.”

  “No. You don’t.”

  She nodded.

  “Where did you get the southern accent?”

  “Wow,” she said. “Talk about changing the conversa
tion.”

  I laughed. “It’s time to get onto something less serious.”

  “I was born in Atlanta, and moved to Miami when I was eight. I guess I never lost the early training.”

  “And how Jennifer Diane Monahan become J.D. Duncan?”

  She chuckled, a light sound in the back of her throat, a mini-laugh. She smiled. “My dad. I think he wanted a boy. I was named for my mother’s two sisters and I was meant to be called by both names, little Jennifer Diane. Typically southern, I guess. My dad shortened it to J.D. and that seemed to stick.”

  “You didn’t turn out very boyish.”

  She reddened slightly, a discreet blush. “My dad was a sports nut and he took me to every kind of game ever played in a stadium. He talked strategy and tactics to the point that I probably know enough to coach a football team and manage a baseball team. But he also took me to the ballet and the philharmonic and bought me frilly dresses and told me stories of princesses.”

  “He sounds like a man of many interests.”

  “He was. I miss him a lot.”

  “Tell me about your folks. I only met your mom a couple of times. She seemed nice.”

  “My dad was an Atlanta cop. Spent twenty years on the force, retired, and we moved to Miami. He went to work for the Miami Beach PD and spent another twenty years there. When he retired, he and Mom wanted to find someplace less hectic than Miami, and they ended up here.”

  “I don’t think I ever met your dad.”

  “Probably not. He died of a stroke the year after they moved to Longboat. He was sixty-one years old. Ten years ago. Mom stayed on until she had a stroke last year.”

  “Why didn’t you come with them when your dad retired?”

  “Oh, I was already married and working for Miami-Dade PD.”

  “So Duncan is your married name.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Still married?” I asked.

  “No. Divorced for ten years.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Nothing to talk about really. I married an idiot. He was a cop too. I put up with a lot for a couple of years, thinking we could make it, and then one night he punched me.”