Dead Wrong (Jason Justice Mystery Book 2)

by Ralph Zeta

  The business of war is death. It is expected. The faces of the dead and dying, comrades and enemies alike, have more in common than all their differences. Death by violence is universally ugly. Milton Lowry’s death, however, was different. I had never witnessed an execution, never watched a victim’s life slowly and inexorably wringed from its body. It would be another grim image that would haunt my quiet moments for as long as I lived.

  I failed to understand why Lowry’s death struck me so profoundly. And I couldn’t put a finger on precisely why it made me want to lash out. Perhaps his death was a stark reminder of my own fragility. Sure, we’re all born with an expiration date. Every day lived brings that inescapable moment ever closer. But that date should be between the individual and his maker. Milton Lowry’s death hadn’t been fate. Fate doesn’t hate. Fate doesn’t grin. That’s when I realized it was happening again: those familiar feelings percolating through the conscious layers of my psyche, taking over large number of synapses in my brain, asserting themselves, staking a claim that could not be denied.

  The genie had slinked out of the bottle. And there was nothing I could do about that, at least not until I extract some measure of justice for Milton Lowry. And any attempt to force the genie back into its lair would be for naught.

  Seven

  Seeing that criminals pay for their evil acts is not what I do. I am not a prosecutor. And I don’t expect I will ever entertain the thought of becoming one. Nothing wrong with the job; it’s just not for me. I go out of my way to avoid conflict whenever possible. And except for an old diving knife I keep in the boat, I don’t own weapons of any sort. I am not a pacifist, and I am a far cry from a peace-loving Buddhist monk. I view myself as a reasonably normal forty-one-year-old single straight male in relatively good shape considering the miles. I’ve never been married and I don’t own a pet. I run a one-man law firm in sunny West Palm Beach. I’ve built a something of a reputation in this town as the go-to lawyer in matters involving contested high-net-worth divorces.

  Like most people—if they’re being honest—I’d rather not work for someone else if I can help it. I don’t care much for ringing phones, spouses, or partners, and the endless mediation sessions so common to the not-so-common world of nine-figure divorces. Fortunately, family law is an area of practice that affords me a great deal of flexibility. My time is (mostly) my own, and I get to pick and choose my clients. I have no one to report to and no partners to wrestle with. Whatever happens is entirely up to me. I’ve had good years and others that, well, I’d just as soon forget. A decade ago, when the economy teetered over the abyss, my revenue took a considerable hit. The economic shock waves caused by the debacle of years of easy credit, rampant speculation, and skyrocketing real estate prices took its toll in all areas of life, including domestic Armageddon. But for the past few years, business has been exceptionally good. I have more work than I can comfortably handle. But all that promise had suddenly lost much of its sheen. I couldn’t shake off the killer’s hate-filled eyes, his sick grin, taunting me, daring me, exulting in the knowledge that whatever I did, Lowry was a dead man.

  I had to marvel at the irony of the righteous fury coursing through me. Watching Lowry’s death, the obvious trap where I became a victim of my own naive eagerness, connected Lowry and me, two complete strangers, in an unexpected way. It was a connection I couldn’t dial down. I wondered how my therapist would diagnose such a connection. A case of reflexive guilt?

  When the day began, most aspects of my life, personal as well as business, were in balance. My bank account was comfortably flush, and I had nothing of concern bearing down on me. I’ll be the first to admit that my life overwhelmingly tilts toward uncomplicated. That is the product of conscious choice. And I see no reason for that to change anytime soon. As a result, I’m often free to do most of the things I want, whenever I want. But as attractive as that may seem, there are times when I wonder whether an easy, uncomplicated life is all it’s cracked up to be.

  As I was toweling off, my backup cell phone trilled, ending my reverie.

  “Chief,” Sammy said in his raspy voice, “I’ve got bad news and worse news. Pick your poison.”

  “Surprise me,” I said as, in my terry cloth sarong, I sank into the overstuffed chair in the stateroom.

  “Been digging into ‘all things Lowry,’ and I’ve got to say, this case ain’t gonna be no walk in the park. There’s just too much. These people are into everything. I’m talking phone books full of corporations, partnerships, joint ventures involving hundreds of real estate deals, not to mention a slew of bank and brokerage accounts. And that’s just for starters. There’s more, a hell of a lot more. That’s the good news. The bad news for you is, this ain’t gonna be cheap.”

  I swallowed but kept quiet. I wasn’t in a mood for the protracted argument that I knew would follow if I told Sammy we had a client, but unfortunately, the client wouldn’t be writing us a check. He was dead. I was not in the proper frame of mind to deal with the issue. I hadn’t eaten in hours and the cocktail of tequila and pain medication had turned my stomach into a knot, which further soured my mood. So I settled for a measured response.

  “No worries. We’ll get paid, Sammy,” I said, and immediately felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t an outright lie—more of an obfuscation of the truth, or so I told myself—with some truth-bending thrown in for good measure.

  I was convinced our activities would soon draw the attention of Mrs. Lowry, and I expected that given her social standing and business reputation, she would want to exert some level of control over how the matter was handled. After all, her husband had been murdered right after he sought the counsel of a divorce attorney.

  In most murder cases, the surviving spouse automatically becomes suspect until an alibi is corroborated. It was a sure bet that her husband’s sizable family fortune would become a factor in the investigation. A fortune surpassing the ten-billion dollar mark together with divorce can become a lethal brew. Mrs. Lowry had to know that and would do everything in her power to mitigate any potential fallout.

  “But I want to know what we’re up against before we go any further,” I said.

  “Fair enough,” Sammy replied. “Although I’m surprised.”

  “About?”

  “Let’s face it, J.J., prudence ain’t your strong suit.”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said. My head was still throbbing, and getting into an argument with Sammy wouldn’t help either of us. “Anything that stands out about Mrs. Lowry?”

  “Well,” Sammy said. The sound of shuffling papers carried over the phone. “No golden nuggets yet. Gabriela Benitez Lowry’s bio reads like the typical success story. Her family arrived in Florida in 1960 with close to nothing. But young Gabriela was a stellar student, good enough to get into Harvard. She cut her teeth in New York for a few years working for an investment banking outfit, then came back home to Miami and went to work for her father’s construction and development company. Ten years later, Pops retires and she’s promoted to CEO. She transformed the company. She expanded into the town house and condo development racket, where she found tremendous success. She saw things no one else saw. Bought large tracts of land—mostly swamps—no one wanted. Drained them, filled them up, and built homes that sold like hotcakes. And when she ran out of swamps to drain in Dade, she expanded west and north. That’s when she met Milton Lowry. They got into business together. During the lean years, she convinced him to plant sugarcane in the swamps she was draining, as a way to pay for more land acquisitions for later development. When sugar became a dirty word, she convinced Lowry to sell the lands to companies she or her family owned or controlled, at very favorable terms; then she developed ’em into residential communities.”

  “So she’s smart,” I said. “What about their marriage?”

  “That’s where you’ll have to read the tea leaves, J.J.,” Sammy said, and I heard more paper shuffling in the background. “Milton Lowry’s father, William “Bull” Low
ry, placed most of his wealth into a family trust with Milton as the trustee. According to the terms of the old man’s will, Milton was not to take stewardship of the Lowry Trust until he turned forty-five. Milton was just twenty-four when his father died, so it makes sense Milton senior wouldn’t entrust his fortune to his studly young son. I mean, from the looks of it, Junior don’t strike me as the business type. From what I’ve read, it appears Junior was more interested in living the good life, jetting around the world, fine threads, fast cars, and hot women. And it appears middle age and marriage did not change the old hound much. Seems our boy kept on chasing skirts. There are tabloid reports aplenty documenting his escapades. I’ll tell you something; either his wife is a saint for not kicking his philandering ass out the door, or maybe she didn’t divorce the cheating bastard, on account of his fortune.”

  “When did they marry?”

  “Wouldn’t you know it,” Sammy said, and I could hear the smirk. “About two years after they met. It coincided with Mrs. Lowry’s company running into serious financial difficulties.”

  “And I bet the betrothal jibes nicely with the end of her financial problems.”

  “What do I keep telling you, J.J.?” Sammy said. “You should forget this gun-for-hire divorcemeister thing. The way you do things, you piss off a lot of people. Some of them powerful people. If one of them decided to hold a grudge and do something about it, they could make your life a merry hell.”

  I smiled. It was a recurring theme with us. Sammy, like many present and former law enforcement officers, had a natural aversion to most lawyers and what he termed “the pretentious moral authority” that so many of my peers tend to profess when their overriding concern is far more mundane: money. Sammy believed I should have pursued a different area of practice. And maybe he was right. But my father’s bleak diagnosis had brought me back to Florida some years back, and for the foreseeable future, divorce court is where I plan to make a living.

  “Are you going to make me beg for an answer?” I asked.

  “You won’t be able to avoid the topic forever, you know,” Sammy countered. “I hope someday you come around and rethink your life, Jason. I think—no, hell, I’m convinced—your father, God rest his soul, would side with me on this one.”

  Again, Sammy was probably right. I had privately debated whether to venture into other areas of practice. But how I chose to make a living is not up for debate. That is entirely up to me. There had been instances when my father and I didn’t see eye-to-eye but I know, if he were alive today, he wouldn’t have been critical of my choice.

  “I’m not going to grovel, Sammy. So out with it or I’m hanging up.”

  His response came in the form of a grunt.

  I knew my refusal to broach the issue irked Sammy. We had been down that road before and the outcome was always the same: we agreed to disagree. At times like this Sammy and I were like two brothers venting out. We shared a deeply held regard for each other that transcended race, age, even blood. Sammy had been around for so long, I thought of him as family, the nagging uncle we all dread on Sundays but always call in a pinch.

  “Okay. Fine,” Sammy finally said after a long silence. “You’re right. Mrs. Lowry’s financial problems ended right after their marriage. She settled some pending litigation with the IRS and successfully fended off the banks breathing down her neck. As matter of fact, she ended up acquiring controlling interest in one of the banks looking to foreclose on her.”

  “What about domestic issues?”

  “Going with nearest and dearest?” Sammy asked.

  I knew what he meant. In over eighty percent of all murder cases, the victim knew the killer. And, over fifty percent of all murders are comminuted by someone with a close relationship to the victim. A spouse, lover, relative, friend, business associate.

  “It’s a safe bet the sheriff is going to take a good hard look at Mrs. Lowry.”

  “Well, if she’s responsible,” Sammy said. It’s going to be mighty hard to find anything that connects her to Lowry’s disappearance. There are plenty of articles out there detailing their infamous public fights. But I’ve have yet to find evidence it ever got physical. Or, if it did, police records were never filed or if they did, they vanished. I can’t find even a parking ticket issued in her name. But we know how things work in their circles. With that kind of money, not much is ever out of reach. But I’ll keep digging.”

  We spoke for another few minutes and we ended the call. I shed the towel wrapped around my waist, donned a T-shirt and shorts then ambled to the galley in search of food. I fixed a tall BLT and avocado sandwich and opened a beer. I slid my tired frame into the dinette and flicked on my laptop. Between bites and swigs, I checked email. After perusing through reams of unopened emails—mostly junk—I gave up on getting any work done. It was pointless. I couldn’t concentrate, in part due to the lingering headache and the throbbing lump on my head, and the image of Lowry’s dying face that kept creeping to the fore, smothering all other thoughts. I could think of little else. I closed the laptop and finished my sandwich. Something occurred to me. Milton insisted we meet somewhere sufficiently remote, far from prying eyes. Presumably, no one else knew of the meeting or the planned location. But it was obvious someone knew.

  I’m being followed. Lowry’s words echoed in my mind.

  The spots of flattened grass by the oak tree behind the farmhouse strongly suggested the killers had been waiting. It was possible they may have known he would be there but maybe not the exact time he would be there. Still, the notion someone with knowledge of Lowry’s movements had to be involved screamed at me.

  I recast my mind over the day’s events. And again, the notion I shouldn’t be alive bubbled to the surface. Killing me would have been easy and logical. Dead men tell no tales. So why let me live? Was I not expected? Or did I surprise them by arriving early? I had no way to know.

  To uncover the truth would require digging into the private lives of a powerful family, individuals who could make my life uniquely unpleasant. Maybe it would be best if I sat this one out. I am not in the business of solving crimes. And I had little to gain from becoming involved. But as is often the case that little voice inside my head said it was pointless to resist. Like it or not, I was already involved. Denying I needed to see it through was pointless.

  Eight

  I rolled out of bed just before dawn, after a restless night. The injury on my scalp still hurt, but the trip-hammer headache was gone. I made a cup of coffee and tried once more to read email, but I couldn’t sit still for long. After a second cup, I decided to remedy my unsettled state of mind by going with a long, strenuous bike ride.

  The eastern horizon had begun to pale when I pedaled out of the marina. I rode at a good clip toward nearby Juno Beach, then headed north along Ocean Drive, toward Jupiter Island. I hit a steady cadence, breathing in concert with the effort, until I had reached the southern edge of the town of Hobe Sound, where I turned around and retraced the route. The thirty-mile ride took just under two hours. On the way home, I made a pit stop at a quaint restaurant along US 1, ordered a cup of coffee, and sat at one of the outdoor tables to watch the sun push up through the gray clouds hugging the ocean.

  Sociopaths and psychopaths are the only humans absolutely certain of their own sanity. The rest of us teeter somewhere along the fuzzy line that separates lucidity from delusion, never really aware when we may cross the line. Anyone who believes they are free of all traces of lunacy has already crossed the line and doesn’t know it. The possibility that something—say, a sufficiently traumatic event—can push anyone over the edge is always there. And therein lay the rub. I had to accept that what happened in that farmhouse the day earlier had affected me. Something indefinable had shifted in me; something dormant had been stirred. And I wasn’t looking forward to what would come next.

  It occurred to me that when someone’s actions or behavior seem, on the surface, illogical, it only means parts of the puzzle are missing. I w
ondered who could fill in the blanks. Mrs. Lowry? Or maybe Milton Lowry’s latest love du jour?

  I finished my coffee and mounted my 58-centimeter carbon foil bike, clipped in, and rode the two blocks back to the marina at an easy pace. Even before I had cruised into the parking lot, I knew it would be a long morning. The unlikely trio of parked vehicles—a mirror-gloss Rolls Royce, a Ford Crown Vic with Florida state plates, and a familiar black Yukon—parked near the walkway to my slip, said so. I had guests. I dismounted, hefted the bike over my shoulder, climbed over the transom, and went inside Blind Ambition II.

  At first glance, Mrs. Gabriela Lowry looked like one of those glamorous Miami Beach women who live and die by the Sacks Fifth Avenue bible of haute couture. Wearing an appropriately chic off-white skirt and top, with gold at her neck, wrist, and ears, she sat comfortably on my living room couch. A young man with a thousand-dollar blond haircut and icy blue eyes sat protectively at her knee. He wore a tight-fitting gray business suit, paisley tie, and cordovan wingtips. Sheriff Powell, whose grim expression said he was not happy to be here, sat on the lone leather chair across the coffee table.

  “I don’t remember asking anyone over this morning,” I said a tad caustically, setting the bike aside and closing the door. “But, please, fell free to make yourselves at home.”

  “Mr. Justice,” Powell said evenly. He stood up and buttoned his coat. He was dressed in casual country club attire: khaki slacks, white dress shirt open at the neck, and dark sport coat. “This is Mrs. Gabriela Benitez Lowry, Milton Lowry’s wife. With her is Mr. Henry Klein. He’s an assistant state’s attorney and also Mrs. Lowry’s nephew.”

  There would be no handshaking and only the bare minimum in pleasantries. Mrs. Lowry and Mr. Klein nodded by way of acknowledging that I existed but said nothing else. They seemed relaxed, in control, as if they belonged exactly where they were. The act of entering my home without my permission, which could be construed as a felony in Florida, didn’t seem to bother them in the least.