Chasing Justice: A Matt Royal Mystery

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “What’s up?”

  “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “You must have gotten an early start.”

  “I arranged to meet an old buddy of mine who’s a detective with Tampa PD. Had to meet him at seven this morning and buy him breakfast.”

  “I’m running on the beach. Do you really need me up there?”

  “I think it’d be worth your while. I want you to talk to my buddy before you go see Tori.”

  “Okay. I’ve got to go home and clean up. It’ll be close to noon by the time I get there. Where do you want me to meet you?”

  “Let’s have lunch on Dale Mabry. There’s a diner that the cops up here like. I’ll bring my buddy with me. His name’s Clay Adams.” Gus gave me the address.

  * * *

  I met Gus and Clay Adams at the restaurant, and after a quick lunch, we drove a few miles to a place that appeared to be part of a slum from a third-world country. I was staggered by the devastation before me. A building fronting the narrow street that ran off North Dale Mabry Boulevard was mostly cinders. Pieces of it littered a large area surrounding the foundation, about the only part of the building still standing.

  A trailer park, or what had once been one, stood behind the ruin. There were perhaps twenty trailers, all in disrepair, sides crumbling into dust, roofs dented by falling tree limbs, broken windows, some covered by plywood, rickety wooden steps leading to a single door. The trailers were small, only big enough for one bedroom and maybe a small living area. They all sat on concrete blocks, their tires rotted and wheels removed some time in the distant past. There was no grass, no trees or shrubs, just bare ground. The trailers set haphazardly about the property, no order, no roads, and no cars. Trash littered the grounds and rotting garbage was stacked by the doors of some of the trailers. Electrical transmission lines ran from nearby poles to the trailers.

  A lone woman, wearing a faded housedress, walked barefoot from one trailer to another. She was not young, but probably not as old as she looked. She was let into the second trailer by another woman of indeterminate age.

  There was no other sign of human activity. Early afternoon and everybody asleep? Were they in hiding because they sensed a cop in the neighborhood? Had they all died of some alien infection that had fallen from the sky that morning? They were living one rung above animals. A place of despair and broken dreams resting under the Florida sun. A slum. A ghetto of the damned. How in the world did human beings sink to this?

  “What happened here?” I asked.

  “The building was a nude dance joint called Buns that doubled as a drug supermarket,” Detective Adams said. “We’d been trying to close it down for a long time, but there’s somebody in the body politic with enough juice to override mere cops.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “We don’t know. We know the man who was listed as the owner, but nobody’s sure he actually owned the place.”

  “So what happened to the building?” I asked.

  “We finally got code enforcement to take a look at it. They scheduled a surprise inspection for a couple of weeks ago, but somebody must have gotten word of it. The night before the inspection was scheduled, somebody blew the place up. Dynamite. A professional job.”

  “Looks like it pretty much destroyed the trailer park, too,” Gus said.

  “Didn’t touch it. That place has looked like that for years.”

  “How many people live there?” I asked.

  “It’s full of residents,” Adams said.

  “People are living in that mess?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Palm Paradise. What a joke.”

  “Why doesn’t some government agency do something about it?”

  “Our code enforcement people don’t seem to be able to get anything done. The people who live here are the forgotten ones. Drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes. Nobody cares. Social Services won’t touch the place. Too many of their people have been run off. These folks don’t trust the government.”

  “Why blow up the bar?” I asked.

  “We haven’t figured that one out yet. Maybe there was too much evidence in there about the owners and God knows what else. Probably just easier to blow the place to smithereens than try to clean up all the evidence, or burn it down and miss destroying something if the fire department got here too soon.”

  “I take it this is where Tori Madison worked,” I said.

  “This is it,” Adams said. “She lived here, too.”

  “In one of the trailers?” I asked.

  “Yep. She lived with her mom, Nina. Tori was raised in those trailers.”

  “Is her mom still around?”

  “No. She died a couple of years back. AIDS.”

  “AIDS?” I asked.

  “Yeah. She was a prostitute. Must have caught it from one of her johns.”

  “There’s treatment for that now,” I said.

  “She didn’t get any. Didn’t want to.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “Yeah,” Adams said. “She was one of my snitches. I knew her for a long time. Knew Tori, too, when she was a kid.”

  “When’s the last time you saw Tori?”

  “Long time. I moved to Homicide about five years ago and lost contact with Tori and her mom.”

  “Do you know who Tori’s dad was?”

  “I didn’t know him, but he was a pretty big drug importer. Lived in a big house over on the Gulf with Tori and her mom. This was all before I met them.”

  “How did they end up in this place?” I asked.

  “The dad got busted. I wasn’t involved in the case. It was before my time, but the guy had been pretty much bulletproof until the Hillsborough Sheriff’s detectives were able to somehow get an undercover guy inserted into the drug organization. They got the goods on the dad and the government confiscated everything he owned. A judge sentenced him to twenty years. He didn’t last a week in prison before somebody stabbed him to death in the shower.”

  “And Tori and her mom ended up here.”

  “Yep. A really big comedown.”

  “How old was Tori when all this happened?”

  “Nine or ten, I guess.”

  “Kid never had a chance,” I said.

  Adams nodded. “I know she dropped out of school and went to work in the club when her mom got sick. She stayed with her mom. Took care of her. When Nina died, Tori disappeared.”

  “Was Tori a dancer?”

  “No. Bartender.”

  “Gus tells me she had a record.”

  “Nothing serious. A couple possession busts and a DUI.”

  “But, there may be things the police never found out about.”

  “Probably so,” Adams said. “Probably so.”

  “You have nothing on the owners?” I asked.

  “No. I checked with Vice after Gus called me, and they have nothing either. They don’t think the drug sales have stopped, but they can’t find where the new operation has set up. They’ve been monitoring all the titty bars along the strip, but so far, nothing’s turned up.”

  “I appreciate your help on this, Clay,” I said. “Would you let me know if something does turn up?”

  “I will, Matt. I’ve asked Vice to keep me in the loop.”

  * * *

  “That was pretty dismal, Gus.” We were sitting in my Explorer at the restaurant parking lot where we’d met earlier. Clay Adams had gone back to work.

  “I thought you ought to see it firsthand. I didn’t think I could adequately describe it.”

  “I don’t think John Steinbeck could have adequately described it.”

  “I wonder how Tori went from that place to being Bannister’s squeeze?”

  “I was thinking about that, too,” I said. “Could Bannister have been mixed up in the drug business that was being run out of that sleazy bar?”

  “Good question. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “I ought to go see T
ori, but I don’t think today is the time.”

  “Sit on it for a day or two,” Gus said. “Let me see if I can dig up anything on Bannister that would tie him to the drug sellers.”

  “Okay, Gus. Let me know if anything pops up.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  At mid-afternoon J.D. was sitting at her desk plowing through paperwork when her intercom buzzed. “There’s a man out here to see you,” said the receptionist. “Says he’s an old friend named Devlin Michel.”

  “Send him back,” J.D. said. She left her desk and walked down the hallway to meet him.

  A six-foot tall man and a pretty blond woman were coming down the hall. “You must be Agent Michel of Homeland Security,” J.D. said, emphasizing the agency’s name.

  “I am,” he said, “and this is my colleague, Agent Katrina Stevanovich. And you must be the very perceptive Detective Jennifer Diane Duncan.”

  She smiled. “My friends call me J.D. You can call me Detective Duncan.”

  “A little touchy, huh?”

  “Mostly curious. Come on back to my office. Want some coffee?”

  They sat in J.D.’s office, steaming cups of coffee in front of them. “May I ask why Agent Stevanovich is here?”

  “She’s just returned from a tour at our embassy in Croatia, and the bosses assigned her to help me while they’re deciding on her next assignment. She also happens to be my fiancée.”

  Katrina smiled. “I think I’m here mostly to look after him. I’m actually the senior agent.”

  “So, what can I do for Homeland Security?” J.D. asked.

  “You can show me your file on the Favereaux murder.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Suppose I have my director call your boss and okay it?”

  “My boss won’t care what your director says,” J.D. said. “It’s my case, and sharing the file is left to my discretion.”

  “You’re sure about that?” he asked.

  “Yep. But you should know that I’m not above a little quid pro quo.”

  “How so?”

  “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  “You told me that on the phone,” Michel said.

  “Offer still stands.”

  “Okay. Let’s play twenty questions. I ask a question, you give me an answer, and then you ask a question, and I’ll give you an answer.”

  “Fair enough,” J.D. said. “You go first.”

  “What do you know about James Favereaux?”

  “Nothing much. He was a hero in Vietnam, went to college, became an entrepreneur, got rich, married a trophy wife, retired, and moved to Longboat Key.”

  “What if I told you that you were wrong on all counts?”

  “Then I’d ask you to correct my many misimpressions.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “A lot of this is highly classified. You have to have all kinds of security clearances for most of this stuff. You don’t have the clearance.”

  “Gee,” J.D. said, “we’re about two questions in and we’re at a stalemate. Let me ask you this. Do you think James Favereaux killed his wife?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Another one then. Do you think somebody else killed her?”

  Michel grinned. “I bet that sort of questioning works with the perps you deal with. Let me put it this way: I think somebody killed the lady.”

  “You’re just a font of information, Agent Michel.”

  “I understand you went to New Orleans.”

  “I did. Ate at the Court of Two Sisters. Great food.”

  “And you talked to Brad Corbin.”

  “Yes. Real nice man.”

  “And Connie Pelletier was murdered right after you visited her.”

  “My, Agent Michel, you do get around. If you know so much, why are you here?”

  “In part, because Detective Corbin said he wouldn’t talk to us about this case without your permission.”

  “Brad’s an honorable man. So, how do we solve this impasse?”

  “What do you know about Nate Bannister?”

  The question caught J.D. off guard, and she hesitated for a moment. “He’s dead.”

  “You didn’t see that one coming, did you?”

  “Your question or the murder?”

  “My question.”

  “No, I didn’t,” J.D. said. “Is the Bannister case related to the Favereauxes in some way?”

  “It might be.”

  “Do you know who is charged with Bannister’s murder?”

  “Abigail Lester, your chief’s wife.”

  “We’re getting onto shaky ground, here,” J.D. said. “Bill Lester’s not only my boss, he’s my friend. And the lawyer representing Abby Lester is also a friend of mine.”

  “Matt Royal.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “Yes, and I gather Mr. Royal is more than just a friend.”

  J.D. grinned and said nothing.

  “You find this Bannister thing intriguing, don’t you?” Michel asked.

  “Let me ask you a serious question. What if your director ordered you to tell Matt Royal and me everything you know about both of these cases, would you be completely honest with us?”

  “My director isn’t going to order me to do any such thing, but hypothetically speaking, if he did, I’d tell you everything. But I’d want your word that you’d open your file to me.”

  “You know Matt wouldn’t be in a position to do the same.”

  “I’m well aware of the attorney-client privilege, Detective Duncan, and I wouldn’t do anything to breach that.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “At the Hilton.”

  “Why don’t Matt and I meet you at the outside bar there this evening? Say five o’clock?”

  “We’ll be there, but I’m not confident we’re going to get anywhere with all this. I’ll talk to my boss. See what he thinks.”

  “The director?”

  “No. There are a lot of pay grades between my boss and the director.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I was pulling into my driveway when J.D. called. “How would you like to have a drink with Homeland Security this evening?”

  “Wow,” I said. “I’d be pretty impressed, I think. What’s going on?”

  “Agent Devlin Michel showed up in my office a little while ago. He says he can’t tell me anything about the Favereauxes, but he wants everything I know.”

  “I don’t imagine he got very far with that.”

  “No, but he said if he got permission from his boss, he’d spill the beans.”

  “Is that going to happen?”

  “He says it won’t.”

  “Then, why are we meeting with him?”

  “I was thinking that maybe we knew somebody who could shake up Michel’s director and get us the information.”

  “Jock?” I asked.

  “Jock.”

  “I thought you didn’t like to go outside channels like that?”

  “I don’t, but necessity breeds necessity.”

  “I don’t think that’s the adage.”

  “Close enough,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “I’ll give him a call.”

  “We’re meeting at the Hilton at five.”

  “That gives me about an hour.”

  “I’ve got faith in Jock,” she said.

  “What about me?”

  “I’ve got a lot of faith in Jock.” The line went dead.

  * * *

  Jock Algren had been my best friend since junior high school. He was an agent for an intelligence agency that was so secretive it didn’t even have a name. Jock did the deepest of undercover work, killed the worst of our enemies, and faced death regularly on those shadowy battlefields where so much of the world’s dirty business is transacted, the places where terrorists thrive and men like Jock hunt them down and exterminate them lik
e the roaches they are.

  Jock was well known in certain government circles, because he was one of the few intelligence operatives who talked directly to the President of the United States, and because he had become legendary for his exploits around the world.

  Jock was a regular visitor to the island. He had his own room in my cottage where he stashed clothes and toiletries and several weapons. J.D. and I considered him family, and we were the only family he had. He hadn’t visited in almost a month, and that meant he was busy in some godforsaken part of the world. We communicated regularly by email or phone, but I missed having him around. I called him. “Hey, podna,” was the way he answered.

  “Jocko, I need a little help.” I explained what I wanted, and he said it’d be done by the time I got to the Hilton. He also told me he was finishing up a project and would be coming to the island soon.

  * * *

  The outside bar at the Hilton overlooks the Gulf of Mexico and is adjacent to a patio where meals are served by the restaurant. It’s my favorite spot for watching the sunset, which on clear days transforms the sea into a palette of colors. My buddy Billy Brugger was tending the bar where he had been for more than thirty years. He was nearing retirement, and I would miss my regular sunset watches with him.

  We were early and took seats at the bar and chatted with Billy. When Michel and his blond colleague arrived, J.D. introduced me and we moved to a table, taking our drinks with us. “You’ve got some powerful mojo, Detective Duncan,” he said. “I don’t know who you talked to, but he or she must be pretty powerful. My director called me personally, and he doesn’t talk to people at my level. He told me to give you anything and everything I had and he let me know that if I held anything back, or didn’t cooperate fully, my head would be on the chopping block. He said his orders came from the very top of the government food chain.”

  J.D. smiled, “Please call me J.D. I think we’re going to be good friends.”

  Michel laughed. “I hope so,” he said. “I’ve only been with the agency for a year. I’m mostly an errand boy at this point.”

  “What were you doing before?” I asked.

  “I was in the navy, and before that, college.”

  “What’d you do in the navy?”

  “I was a SEAL.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said.

  “I checked you out, too, Mr. Royal. You were Army Special Forces. I always liked those green berets you guys got to wear. They’re cute as hell.”