"Dan, this is my friend, Nora Hollister," Gabe introduced them.
"I’m pleased to meet you, Ma’am."
"Nice to have you come and give us a hand down here," Nora said. "But it's Nora. I swear I'll shoot the next person that calls me Ma’am."
"Beauty and a sense of humor, too," Dan laughed.
"Don't be fooled. She means it. She carries a rifle at home."
''Only sometimes," Nora smiled. "And don't forget the pitchfork."
Nora and Gabe exchanged a knowing look. Dan raised his eyebrows, "Mmm. Anything I should know about?"
"No." they said at the same time, laughing at the memory.
Heading back to Myakka and the grove, Gabe and Nora filled Dan in with more details on what was happening.
"I looked into the Cartels and found that you just might be right. Pablo Escobar runs the Medellin Cartel out of Columbia. Escobar has been trying to move his operations further north. It's getting too hot in Okeechobee. We're looking into rounding up his players there. Escobar stays in Columbia, so we can't get to him. He pays a lot of money to fight extradition. I’d sure like to put pressure on him by putting some of his operations out of business, though."
stepped out. "Quiet, Rex," he yelled at the old "How can he get away with this? Surely his own country can put him out of business," Nora said stunned that such a criminal could exist.
"Escobar is clever and ruthless. Whoever opposes him is killed. It doesn't matter who. Police and politicians are gunned down in the street. He had the police station itself blown up. He gives money to social programs for the poor and soccer clubs for the kids. He wants to be a leader of the country. One of his political opponents was assassinated recently. He's worth a ton of money. They say he bought a Lear jet just to move his money around. All from cocaine smuggled into the States," Daniel said. "It's estimated that 15 tons of cocaine are smuggled in each day.”
"That's crazy," Nora said. She could not believe that one man controlled so much.
"I'd be happy if we can just catch the men that killed Henry Jessup and Richie Cantura," Gabe said. Traffic was light, and they made good time. They arrived back at Nora's in the late afternoon. The sun was setting, and the slight breeze had dust devils swirling in the sandy yard.
Rex came off the porch where he had been dozing in the sun. Gramps heard him barking and dog. "Who have you got here?" he asked— extending his hand to Daniel.
Nora made the introductions to Rosita and Gramps. The older man asked them inside. "Nice to have you come down and give us a hand, Daniel. Come on in and have a cold drink."
Rosita was busy at the stove stirring and adding spices to her cooking pots.
"Thanks, I’m happy to help. I'd like to take a look at the crime scene and get a feel for what's going on. Like I told Gabe and Nora, I believe that cocaine is being dropped from that plane. The cars are picking it up and taking it to be distributed. Mr. Jessup might have confronted them, and they beat him to shut him up. I'm not sure about your man Richie. He might have been skimming and got caught. You say he was just bailed out with another guy?"
"Yeah, a guy named Tito. He was locked up for fraud. He was falsifying the grove’s records. You know, I'm surprised they tried again after Mr. Jessup was found dead. They must have known the police would be called in," Gabe said. He took a glass of iced tea from Gramps and handed one to Dan.
"They don't care. They'll shoot and kill anyone that gets in their way." Dan took a drink from the cold tea. “Thanks, this hits the spot.”
Gramps put the jug back in the fridge and told Dan, "I'm wrapping up the season this week. I'll pay the workers off and give out a couple of bonuses, and they can move on. They’re good people trying to make a living. I don't want anyone else hurt," Gramps said.
"That might be a good idea," Daniel agreed.
"I'll tell Hector, my foreman, to let them know tomorrow and have payroll get the money ready for Friday. There’s only about a week left anyway. They can move on over the weekend." Gramps had it all figured out.
“That’s good,” Gabe agreed. “And thanks for the tea. I guess I'll see you all later then. I'll take Dan over to Jessup's before the sun sets." Gabe put his hat back on his head and looked at Nora. He wanted to sit with her again on the porch and not have to talk about drugs and dead bodies. He was thinking he could sit beside her forever, and that scared him more than the drug cartel did.
Nora stood on the back steps and followed Gabe's car until the tail lights turned onto the main road. Rosita called her back in to set the table for supper. Rosita was humming a little tune as she stirred rice on the stove.
"Don't you go thinking what you're thinking. I've only just met him," Nora said.
Rosita smiled. "Who says I'm thinking anything?" she asked, placing the rice and Carne Asada on the table. She knew this was one of Nora's favorites. She was a talented cook, taking recipes from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and her home country of Columbia. She made them her own way, often adding the citrus flavors of Florida.
The light was fading fast as Gabe and Dan walked back to the patrol car. They had searched the field as best as they could. Jessup's cattle had been moved to another pasture until his son Ralph could figure out what to do with them. Ralph was not a farmer. He lived in Sarasota and worked in a bank. Gabe figured the place would be put up for sale and bought by some city guy who wanted to play farmer. It was happening all over these days.
"This is just the kind of place the cartel would use for its drop. An old man they figured they could control. A quick in-and-out and no one the wiser," Dan said, sliding into the passenger seat.
"I'm worried about Nora and her grandfather," Gabe said, putting the car in gear and turning around.
"They should be fine as long as they don't get in the way or interfere."
"Somehow, I don't think Nora is going to follow that advice," Gabe said. He was thinking about how Nora had followed him, rifle and all. She would not back down easily. As much as he admired her courage, he was afraid it could get her into a lot of trouble.
Gabe took Dan back to his small house in Arcadia. It was a Craftsman style with three bedrooms upstairs. Dan was shown to the one Gabe kept for guests, not that he had many. His folks still lived up in Tampa, and they could visit without having to stay over. Usually Gabe went up to them. When he did, his sister and her family would come over. Gabe's dad used any excuse to barbeque something. His mom loved the family gatherings. Her one thing was family. Her children and grandchildren were her pride and joy.
Gabe didn't think he would be able to get away for a while, with all that was going on now. He thought he would like to take Nora with him the next time he went to visit. His mom was going to love her, and his dad would admire her spunk.
After showing Dan where to find some towels for a shower, he went down to fix supper. Looking in the fridge, he didn't see many options. A box of dried pasta and a jar of sauce was Gabe's go-to for a quick meal.
Dan came down the stairs, toweling his hair, still wet from his shower. He looked a lot more comfortable in his worn gym pants and t-shirt, than he did in his suit and tie.
"How do you guys survive down here in this heat?" he asked, taking the edge of the towel off his neck to wipe the sweat dripping down his forehead.
"You think this is bad? This is the best time of year down here," Gabe said. He turned on an air conditioner in a side window. "That should help in a bit."
Dan lifted the lids of the pots on the stove. "You have to get a cookbook, Gabe. That's the same stuff you cooked in college. Remember the time you forgot to turn off the stuff you were cooking in the dorm room? The smoke was billowing down the hall, alarms going off. You came back from the library just as the fire department arrived. You almost got thrown out of the dorms for that one." Dan sat back in a kitchen chair, smiling. "Remember the no cooking rule which you ignored all the time?
“When we were in college, I thought we would both go for the FBI. I did and ended up in the DEA. Ho
w come you went for the Sheriff's Department?" Dan asked. He'd stretched-out his tall frame and leaned back in the chair.
Gabe went to the fridge and took out a couple of cold beers, placing one in front of Dan, opening the other for himself.
"Remember in our last year, my mom got sick? You were the only one I told about her breast cancer," Gabe started to explain. "I wanted to stay close to home, you know, just in case. The Sheriff's Office was a way to stay close to Tampa and still be in law enforcement. She got better, and I found that I enjoyed doing what I was doing."
"Okay, I get it. But why transfer down here to Crackerville?" Dan joked.
"Crackerville? Really.” Gabe raised his brows at the remark. “There are a couple of reasons. I get to be more than I could be up there. Here, I'm in charge of the department. It's small, and I get to know my deputies, their families and what they're capable of. I like knowing people's names down here. I'm dealing with real people, not just names on a report. And another thing, I like Crackerville. They have a long, strong heritage.
“The name Cracker goes back to the times when they drove the cattle and horses from one coast to the other—right through this area here. They called it the ‘Cracker Trail.’ The cowboys were called crackers because of the sound their whips made. It's living history here. Families have been here for generations. I hope to have roots that deep someday."
Dan got curious and asked, "So what's the deal with you and Nora? Have you staked a claim yet?"
"I'm working on it," Gabe admitted, remembering the kiss in the barn.
"Better work a bit faster before someone beats you to it."
"By someone . . . do you mean you?"
"Only if she's up for grabs, pal."
"Guess I’d better work a little faster then."
Dan had a thoughtful look on his face. "Maybe you'll plant that tree with deep roots with Miss Hollister."
"Maybe," Gabe answered. "Enough of all that, let's eat." He stood and took his plate to the stove, effectively ending that particular conversation.
The men helped themselves, filling their plates from the pots on the stove. They talked about their old college days and who remembered who. Then the conversation got serious and turned to what was happening with the drugs and the cartel moving in.
"I have to do whatever I can to stop drugs coming in through my area. They must have someone local—someone who knows the area. How did they pick Jessup's place for a drop? How often are they making the drop?"
Dan stifled a yawn. "Those are great questions for the morning. I'm beat." Being a good guest, he took his plate to the sink and washed it along with Gabe's. The pots were set to soak, and the two men found their way to bed.
Gabe lay awake for a while listening to an owl hooting in a gnarled oak behind his house. His thoughts were like turning pages in a book—quickly jumping from the drug cartel to Nora and back again.
Capter Eleven
Tito knew his way around the grove in the dark. He parked his late model truck down by the tractor shed and stayed in the shadows as he made his way to the packing plant. The truck was hidden from anyone up at the house.
He still had a couple of friends who worked the Hollister grove, and he’d found out about tomorrow being the last day for the workers. He needed money fast. After what had happened to Richie, he wanted to run as far away as possible from what was going down around here.
He knew there would be pay packets left out on the old man's desk. He figured there might be a couple of thousand there, counting the bonuses and everything being paid out.
Stealing through the darkness, he came to the back of the plant. Stacking some wooden orange crates up to a back window, he climbed up and peered in. A light glowed from the office. "Old man can't even remember to turn out the lights," he muttered to himself.
Easing the window open, trying not to let it squeak, he squeezed his body in. As soon as his feet hit the floor, the old boards creaked. He stood still as a statue expecting someone to challenge him. His nerves had him sweating. He rubbed the sting of it out of his eyes with his shirt.
One foot in front of the other, cringing as the old boards creaked, he crept across the packing house floor towards the office. He was supposed to be alone, but somehow, he knew he wasn't. The hair on the back of his neck was tingling.
Rex came out of the office. His nails clattering on the wooden floor, tail wagging, he went to greet the visitor. Tito was not a favorite of the old dog, but Rex took any scratch behind the ears he could get.
"Yeah, yeah," Tito whispered giving the dog a mindless scratch behind his ears while keeping his eyes on the office door. The dog flopped onto his
back hoping for a belly rub. He was disappointed when Tito moved away and stood beside the office door, out of sight.
"Rex," Gramps called to the dog. "I guess you're telling me it's time to go home. I'm so stiff from sitting I can hardly move.” Gramps stood, moving his shoulders to get the stiffness out. "Come on, old thing, we can finish up in the morning. I'll have to show Nora how to do this paperwork I guess."
Gramps walked out of the office and looked at Rex sitting in the middle of the room. The dog had his head cocked to the side as if trying to figure something out. "What's got into you?" he asked—right before he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and the world went black.
"Why did you have to be here tonight, old man?" Tito asked the unconscious man on the floor. The dog looked up at Tito and back to Gramps on the floor. He seemed to be asking “What did you do that for?”
"Sorry dog, but I got big trouble on my ass." He stepped over the man on the floor and made a beeline for the packets on the desk. He stuffed them quickly in his jeans and inside his shirt as fast as he could. Ruffling through the desk drawers in case there was anything of value, he noticed Gramps had left his pocket watch by the lamp. "I need this more than you do right now. It might be worth a few bucks."
Making his escape through the side door, he drove with his headlights off until he reached the main road. Any other state but Florida was looking pretty good right now. He had to get away from that psycho Santos and whatever he was mixed up in. Tito wanted no part of it, no matter how good the money was. The man scared the shit out of him.
Nora looked up from her book. Her grandfather was taking a long time down at the packing house. It was a nice evening, so she decided to walk down to the plant and surprise him. Dislodging Hobo from her lap, she went to the kitchen and filling a thermos with iced tea, took her hat off the peg and headed out.
It was a bright night with the full moon shining high in the sky. She loved seeing so many stars and tried to pick out a constellation or two while walking. You didn't see so many stars in towns and cities. The cicadas were buzzing in the trees. Bats from a roost in the old barn were out hunting for their supper.
Even before she saw the side door standing wide open, she knew something was wrong. Seeing the door open was strange because Gramps hated letting the mosquitoes in. Climbing the steps, she called out, "Gramps, it’s Nora. You know you left the door open. Don't come complaining to me about mosquito bites. Rex came wagging his tail, his tongue hanging out. "Need some water in your bowl, boy?" she asked the old dog. She walked across the plant floor, head down rubbing the dog's soft ears.
"Gramps, Rex needs some water. What have you been doing in here?" Looking up, she stopped, seeing her grandfather slumped on the floor outside his office. She ran over and heard the old man moan. Helping him sit up, she saw the bloody gash on the side of his head.
"What happened? Did you fall? I'm calling Doc Winters." Nora stood and went to the phone on the desk.
"Someone hit me." She heard Gramps say weakly.
"What?" She couldn't believe what she heard.
She knelt beside him. "Who hit you?"
"Didn't see him."
Nora phoned Gabe, getting him out of bed and then Doc Winters. Gabe said he would be there right away. Doc was out on another call, but his service
would reach him.
Rex was getting in the way when she tried to get her grandfather up and to his chair behind the desk. The more she pushed the dog away the more he wanted to help. Tears of frustration, anger and fear ran down her face. Finally, she managed. It was then she noticed that the tray they kept the pay packets in was empty.
She filled a glass with cold tea from the thermos and helped her grandfather drink a bit, "Thanks girl, that's a bit better."
Leaving her grandfather, she went out to the first aid box and took out a few packets of gauze pads. She quickly brought them back, opened a couple and made a compress for the old man’s head wound. “Hold this,” she ordered.
After filling the dog's water bowl from the water cooler in the corner she asked, "Gramps, did you get the wages for the field workers today?"
"Yeah, Helen brought them over late this afternoon. I was just finishing up adding a bit for the bonuses."
"Gramps, the tray is empty. Someone took all the packets. That person is the one who hit you."
"Aw, shit," Gramps muttered.
Nora took the compress from his head and changed it for a clean one. Gramps was done with her fussing and waved her hand away. "I'm fine," he said taking the pad from her and holding it to his head himself.
"You're not fine. You've just been hit on the head." She felt her eyes filling with tears.
"It's a hard head," he countered.
A siren coming to a halt outside had Rex bounding for the door. The sound of heavy boots coming up the stairs reached the office, and Nora relaxed knowing help had arrived.
"Can't stay out of trouble, can you?" Gabe asked standing in the doorway, one hand on his gun and the other leaning on the door frame. He was just about the best-looking thing Nora had ever seen. She stood and ran to him—tears running down her face. He gathered her into his arms and planted a gentle kiss on her head.
"It's not her this time," Gramps laughed. He took the cloth off his head and showed Gabe his wound.
Blood Orange Page 6