“I think the same guys who tried to kill me Saturday night killed Conley that morning. I didn’t know the guy and I can’t see any connection between us. If you hear anything else, let me know. Oh, and tell Anne that Jock got here.”
We said goodbye and hung up. I related the conversation to Jock. “Still not ringing any bells,” I said.
Just before nine, my cell phone rang again. It was Bill Lester telling me that ballistics had matched the slug in my car to the one that killed Conley. A canvass of the local hospitals had failed to turn up any evidence of a Hispanic man with a broken arm.
“He could’ve had it looked at by any number of doctors, and we’ll probably never figure it out,” Bill said.
He also told me that I could pick up the Explorer at the crime lab. I called a company that repairs car windows and arranged for them to pick up the car and fix the window and plug the bullet hole in the upholstery. I’d retrieve it late that afternoon from the repair shop.
* * * * *
At noon, we drove south in Jock’s rental car and crossed the New Pass Bridge onto Lido Key. I marveled at the beauty of the inlet, its surface painted in pastel shades of blue and green. Several boats were anchored on the sandbar just seaward of the bridge, filled with people fishing and taking the sun.
We found a parking place near Lynches and walked back a block to the small restaurant. Logan was waiting at a table just inside the door.
“Good to see you, again,” he said to Jock as they shook hands.
“Same here, Logan.”
We ordered lunch while Jock and Logan caught up with each other. Just as our meal was brought to the table, a large man, probably six-feet-three and weighing 220 pounds entered the restaurant. He had a lot of blonde hair set off by a deep tan. His sun-wrinkled face put him in his mid-forties.
“Matt,” he said, as he spotted us. “I’ve left a couple of messages on your answering machine.”
“Sorry, Buddy. I haven’t checked it since Friday. Say hello to Jock Algren. Jock, this is Buddy Gilchrest.”
“Nice to meet you, Jock. You doing okay, Logan?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Matt, I heard you found those Mexicans on the beach on Friday,” said Buddy. “The one who’s still alive is the brother of one of my crew chiefs.”
Buddy ran a lawn maintenance business that had sewn up much of the condo business on Longboat and Lido Keys. Most of his workers were Mexican immigrants, some even legal.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“Still in a coma, but the cops are going to charge him with murder as soon as he wakes up. I don’t think he did it. I was wondering if you knew anything.”
“I don’t. What makes you think he didn’t do it? The evidence seems pretty solid.”
“Well, first of all, I doubt Pepe knows how to use a gun. Secondly, he’s here legally, and I don’t think he’d want to do anything to jeopardize his status. He’s supporting a pretty big family in Mexico.”
“I wish I could help, Buddy, but you probably know more about this than I do.”
“I also heard that you almost got killed a couple of times this weekend. Do you think there might be some connection with the guys you found on the beach?”
“I don’t see how. All I did was find them and call it in.”
“The cops think this has to do with drugs. I know Pepe wouldn’t be using. He had too much to lose.”
“Could he be in the importing business?” Jock asked.
“I doubt it. Call me if you hear anything, Matt. Take it easy Logan.” He went to the bar to order lunch.
We finished our meal, and Logan left for the airport. Jock and I had another beer, paid our bill, and walked out of the restaurant. Just as we got to the sidewalk my cell phone rang. It was Bill Lester.
“Where are you, Matt?” His voice was agitated, louder than normal.
“Just leaving Lynches. What’s up?”
“Get back inside and stay away from the windows. I’m on my way.” He hung up.
“Back inside,” I said to Jock. He didn’t question me, just headed for the door. “That was the police chief. He’ll be here in a few minutes. I don’t know what the problem is, but he said to get inside and stay away from the windows.”
I patted my thirty-eight in its holster and asked Jock if he were armed.
“Yes,” he said. “I brought it in checked luggage.”
We sat. In about ten minutes Bill Lester strode through the door. I introduced him to Jock. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Your Explorer’s been shot up again. The guy from the auto-glass shop went to the crime lab to pick it up. He was coming out of the parking lot when somebody shot through the windshield with an assault rifle.”
“Shit,” I said. “Anybody hurt?”
“Yeah. The shooter got the driver right between the eyes. A hell of a shot.”
I said, “This had nothing to do with my habits.”
Jock shifted in his chair. “I wonder if somebody put a locator beacon on Matt’s car,” he said. “That’d make it simple to find him whenever they wanted.”
“I’ll have the crime lab check for one,” said the chief. “In the meantime, Matt, you’d better lay low. I’ll let you know what I find out. Any more of this and we’ll have to change the name of the island to Murder Key.” He left.
“I think we need to get out of town,” Jock said.
“That’s a hell of a note,” I said.
“Well, at least until we can get some idea of who’s trying to kill you.”
I thought about it for a moment. I had to do something more than sit around waiting to be shot. “Let’s go to Orlando,” I said. “I’ve got an old friend in the U.S. Attorney’s office who might be able to find out what’s going on with this mess.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Jock.
“We’ve got two dead Mexicans and one in a coma. The guy who tried to kill me Friday at Tiny’s was most likely Mexican. Conley was an immigration lawyer. I think I may have somehow stumbled into some kind of war involving immigrants. If there’s anything going on in that area of law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney’s office would be involved. It’s worth a try.”
37
Murder Key
NINE
We went back to my condo and packed up. I grabbed some changes of clothes and my shaving kit. I’d stored my passport in a plastic container in the kit, and I brought it along. Jock thought that if the bad guys were using locator beacons, they might have had time to attach one to his rental. We stopped by the Sarasota- Bradenton airport and Jock switched cars with the accommodating Hertz attendant. We drove through downtown Sarasota, taking evasive actions that only Jock understood, to make sure we weren’t being followed. We finally turned east toward I-75 for the two-hour trip to Orlando.
Orlando was one of those medium-size cities trying to become a metropolis. The construction crane had replaced the swan as the city’s bird symbol. Steel and concrete skeletons were poking their way out of the ground, striving for their planned thirty or thirty-five floors. Soon they’d be glassed over and join their brothers on the skyline.
The Chamber of Commerce and developer types were glowing at all this tangible evidence of growth. Every day the local newspapers carried pieces about more new buildings, and this or that national company moving in to occupy them. It meant more employment, more people, more money. The power structure was happy, the developers were happy, and the people from the North looking for the good life were happy in the sunshine with their new jobs.
Nobody talked much about the lakes that looked like vats of pea soup; the ones that thirty years before had held clear, clean water, or about the ducks and coots that once lived and loved and procreated there. You didn't read a lot about the neighborhood downtown where people had lived for generations in neat clapboard and concrete block houses that were being torn down for the new civic arena. The people of that neighborhood were black and poor and had no part in the power
structure.
If you cared about the land, and the water, and the trees, and the sky, and the people, you got sick of it all. I guess that was one of my reasons for bailing out, for resigning from the power structure, selling the house, and moving to Longboat Key. The rats had won the race, and I said the hell with it.
We drove out Colonial Drive to my favorite steak house. They pan fry their steaks and somehow turn out the best meat in the county. The super T-bone cooked medium rare and smothered in sautéed mushrooms is impossible to beat.
The restaurant itself was housed in one of those old concrete block buildings that were put up all over Florida in the years after World War II. It was small, divided into four separate dining rooms, each having five or six tables crammed close together. The tables were covered with red and white checkered plastic table-cloths, not in an attempt to be trendy, but because for the forty years the proprietors had been serving their steaks, they had always used them and could see no reason to change.
The place didn’t take reservations, and there was always a line stretching out the door. They had a liquor license but no lounge. Waitresses would serve drinks outside while the customers waited to get in the door. It was probably technically against the law, but since the Chief of Police and the Sheriff, along with most of the rest of the area's politicians, were regular customers, there was never any trouble. Most of the patrons were locals, and on any given night the waiting line was a bit festive, with old friends gossiping, and not a little business getting done.
I’d called my law school classmate, David Parrish, from the car and asked him to meet us for dinner. He’d joined the State Attorney’s office in Orlando after graduation, and after a few years had transferred to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He’d risen to be Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, which covers a large part of the state, extending from Jacksonville, down the Atlantic coast to Melbourne, across the state at Orlando and down the Gulf Coast from Tampa to Naples. If law enforcement suspected migrant smuggling was going on anywhere in the district, Parrish would know about it.
David was standing at the end of the line of customers when we drove up, a tall blonde man built like the college linebacker he had once been. He wore a dark suit, white dress shirt, and a printed silk tie, loosened at the collar.
“Matt, good to see you,” he said, as we shook hands. “What brings you back to the big city?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner, David. Meet Jock Algren.”
We chatted as we worked our way up the line until we were finally seated. I explained that Jock was an old friend visiting from Texas, and that we had come to Orlando seeking some information.
Once seated and our orders taken, David looked at me and said, “Okay. What’s the big mystery?”
“Are you aware of the murders over the weekend on Longboat Key?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, a look of concern crossing his face. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be representing somebody in that mess.”
“No. Somebody has tried to kill me three times since Friday night.” I told him the whole story, including my grisly discovery on the beach on Friday morning. “Since there seems to be some sort of Mexican connection in the murders and the attempts on me, I thought maybe you might have some insight into what’s going on.”
“Well, yes, I might,” he said hesitantly, “but I’m not sure how much I can tell you.”
“Somebody’s trying to kill me, David. At the least, I need to know who and why.”
“Are the police working on it?”
“Of course. But they’re running blind. We can’t figure out why anyone would want to kill me.”
“You didn’t know Dwight Conley?” he asked.
“I’d never heard of him before he was killed. Did you know him?”
“Yes. Look, Matt, I need some time to think about what I can and can’t say. I might need some clearance from higher up. Why don’t you and Jock come by my office in the morning, maybe around ten?”
We finished the evening with small talk.David wouldn’t discuss the Mexican connection, as I was now thinking of it. I tried a couple of times to steer the conversation back that way, but each time he simply said, “Tomorrow.”
37
Murder Key
TEN
The U.S. Attorney’s office was housed in the Federal Court-house on Hughey Avenue in downtown Orlando. The building also contained the social security office and several other federal welfare agencies. There was a long line waiting to go through the security check point. The U.S. Marshals service provided uniformed personnel to check all handbags and briefcases. Cell phones were not allowed in the building, so I had to walk back to the car parked across the street in the public lot under I-4, taking our phones to put them with our guns. The sun was getting higher in the sky, and the warmth of the late October day was becoming a little uncomfortable as the heat reflected off the pavement.
I was dressed casually in a golf shirt, chinos and cordovan loafers. Jock wore similar clothes, and one might have thought we were headed for the course to shoot a round of golf. Our mission was a little more important, since it concerned a life very valuable to me; my own.
We were finally vetted through all the security and took the elevator to the fourth floor. A very efficient looking woman in her fifties was manning the desk in the waiting room. The aluminum and vinyl chairs arranged around the walls were partially filled with men in dark suits holding cheap brief cases. Lawyers, no doubt, come to negotiate a plea for their drug-dealing clients. None of them looked very savory. We were told to go right on back, as Mr. Parrish was waiting for us in the conference room next to reception.
The space was not large, but it held a small conference table with eight chairs set around it. David sat at the head of the table and two men in suits sat next to each other at the end nearest him. They stood as we entered the room.
David said, “Matt Royal and Jock Algren, I’d like you to meet Rufus Harris and Paul Reich. Rufus is with the Drug Enforcement Agency and Paul is with the Border Patrol.
Rufus was a large black man, standing about six-feet-four, and weighing over two hundred pounds. As we shook, my hand was buried in his, but his grip was as soft as a caress. He was dressed in a blue business suit, white dress shirt and red silk tie.
Reich was a small white man, with light brown hair turning gray. He was about five-eight, one-hundred-sixty pounds and looked more like a mortgage banker than a federal law enforcement agent. He wore beige pants, a blue blazer, white shirt and a blue and tan striped tie.
“I’ve asked Rufus and Paul to be here,” David said, “because they’re involved in investigations that may have a bearing on your problem.”
We took our seats. I was across from Harris and Jock sat opposite Reich. This was not what I had expected. I’d anticipated a chat with David and I was surprised by his decision to bring in two federal agents. Maybe they had the answers I was looking for.
David leaned back in his chair. “Paul did some checking in Washington,” he said, “and was told that Jock could hear any-thing we had to say. I don’t know what strings you pulled Jock, but they were powerful ones.”
“Thank you for the effort,” Jock said quietly.
David turned to me. “I vouched for you, Matt,” he said.
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Now, why is somebody trying to kill me?”
“We don’t know,” said Reich, “but you may have stumbled onto a drug ring. If they think you’re a danger to them, they take you out.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’ve never had anything to do with drugs or drug rings. Why would some drug runner want to kill me?”
“They don’t need much of a reason,” said Harris. “We think there’s a pretty big ring working out of the Sarasota Bay area. Maybe you stumbled onto something you aren’t even aware of.”
I gave it a moment. “Did David tell you about the dead Mexicans I found on the beach?
” I asked.
“Yes, and they might be the key,” said Harris. “We think the drugs are being brought in from Mexico. The lawyer who was killed on Longboat Key was working with us.”
Jock leaned over, his elbows resting on the table. “What do you mean, ‘working with’ you?” he asked.
Reich looked at Jock. “Conley was dirty,” he said. “He was involved in providing fake identification to illegals. He had fake Social Security cards, green cards, visas, you name it. We caught him about three months ago, and made a deal with him to provide us with information on his clients in order to stay out of jail.”
I grinned. “I’d say that presented some ethical problems for Conley,” I said.
Reich laughed. “I don’t think he’s a guy who ever worried much about ethics. We couldn’t use what he told us directly about his clients in a court of law, but we could and did use his information to bust up a couple of rings that supplied fake ID’s. We also took down a low-level coyote we caught bringing Mexicans across the Rio Grande in south Texas.”
“So,” I said, “you think somebody in the people-smuggling business killed Conley. Where does the DEA come in?”
“We think there may be a drug connection to the immigrant smuggling,” said Harris. “There are a lot of illegals in Manatee and Sarasota counties, working the truck farms and groves. We’ve also seen a rise in the drug traffic in that area. It’s an interesting coincidence, but it may be no more than that. We haven’t found any evidence, yet.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t see how this applies to me.”
Reich said, “The dead Mexicans you found were probably illegals. We haven’t been able to identify them yet, and the survivor is still in a coma.”
Harris wiped at his eyes with both hands, the sign of a tired man. “We think Conley was getting close,” he said. “His last message to us was that he had an inside source. He was supposed to meet one of our agents the morning he was killed.”
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