The Key to Betrayal

by John Matthew Lee

  “I have a sugar daddy that I see every week. He lives in a condo in Charlestown, and he has lots of money. He used to work for the post office for like forty years or something. I thought he would come, pick me up, and pay these two peckerwoods their money. I called Lonnie, Lonnie Jackson, and asked if he would pick me up from the dismantling yard.”

  “How long have you known Jackson?” asks Liam.

  “I've been fucking him on and off for about six years. You see, he's an older guy in his sixties, and he don't mind if I sleep with men or women. He just wants to be taken care of,” says Rodriquez.

  “I can understand that. Can you relate to that, Zim?” laughs Liam.

  Rodriquez said, “I called Jackson and told him where I was, and he agreed to pick me up.”

  “Did you tell him about the money that he needed to have?” asks Liam.

  “No,” says Rodriquez, “I was afraid he wouldn't show.”

  “Forty-minutes later, Lonnie's Cadillac pulled down the dirt road toward the shack. She and the brothers walked out of the house toward the moving car. As the car got closer, Bobby Dale yelled, ‘You called a fucking nigger here?’ She says when Bobby Dale saw that Lonnie was black, he lost it. When Lonnie stopped his car in front of the shack, Bobby Dale walked toward the driver’s side of the car and said, ‘You're one dead fucking nigger.’”

  Rodriquez said, “Bobby Dale had a knife in his right hand and reached into the car and stabbed Lonnie once in the left side of his neck. He continued to stab him at least three more times in the chest. Bobby Dale said to Randall, ‘I broke the blade off in his chest.’

  Rodriquez continued, “She says, ‘I saw Lonnie slump over toward the passenger side of the car while the car was still running. I thought the brothers were going to kill me then, for bringing Lonnie there.’”

  “Did they ever say anything to you about the color of your skin...I mean, you being Puerto Rican and all?” asks Zimmer.

  “No. I guess because I'm light complexioned, they never said anything,” says Rodriquez. “Once Lonnie wasn't moving or making any noise, Randall Dale said to Bobby, we need to get him and his car the fuck out of here. Bobby Dale told me to remove Lonnie's wallet and see how much money he had. So I removed his wallet from Lonnie's front pocket and pulled the cash out. I gave all the cash to Bobby Dale. Randall Dale said he had a place to dump the body in South Boston. He said he would drive Lonnie's Cadillac, with Lonnie and I in the back seat, while Bobby Dale would follow in the tow truck. The brothers put Lonnie in the back seat behind the driver's side and then told me to sit in the front with Randall. Randall told his brother to grab some tow chains and other car parts and put them in the trunk before they left the yard.”

  “How much money did you pull off of Lonnie?” asks Zim.

  Rodriquez says, “He had about eighty-five dollars on him. We left the yard on Rock Hill and drove across town to the shipyards in South Boston. Randall and Bobby Dale pulled Lonnie's body from the back seat. They put chains around his neck and hooked heavy metal parts to a chain and wrapped it around his waist and legs. They fucking rolled Lonnie's body over the side of the dock and into the water.”

  “Did you see anyone around the yards when you pulled up to the docks?” asks Liam.

  Rodriquez replies, “No, I didn't see anyone around, but we weren’t there for very long. After they dumped his body, I thought they were going to kill me, but Randall told me to get back into the Cadillac, so I did. Randall followed Bobby Dale out of the shipyards and we drove to the Chinatown area, where he let me out. I called a friend from Chinatown who came and gave me a ride back to my house.”

  “Have you had any contact with either Bobby Dale or Randall Dale since they dropped you off in Chinatown?” asks Liam.

  “No, I don't want to see those fuckers ever again,” says Rodriquez.

  “Why are you so afraid of staying in this facility? I mean, you told us you wanted to be transferred, but why?” asks Zimmer.

  “When we were partying, Randall Dale said his mother worked at the jail in South Boston,” says Rodriquez.

  “Doing what?” asks Zim.

  “I don't know. I don't even know if it's true or not,” says Rodriquez.

  “How did you end up in here? I mean, why were you arrested?” asks Liam.

  “On Tuesday, I got stopped walking in the Plains and was holding some methamphetamine. They slapped a solicitation charge on me too, so I ended up here waiting to go to court.”

  “Would you be able to show us the place where Lonnie was dumped at, and the dismantling yard in Jamaica Plains?” asks Liam.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” says Rodriquez.

  “Now, Maria, think about this question real carefully before you answer it. Did you keep any of the money or credit cards from Lonnie's wallet? Remember, it's very possible that we've already talked to either Bobby Dale or Randall Dale, and they may have told us a different story about the money,” says Liam. “Think about this, Maria, why are we here?” asks Liam. Zim and Liam look at Rodriquez and smile.

  “They gave me thirty dollars and one of his credit cards, and told me if I said anything they would kill me. I spent the money, but I had the card on me when I was arrested,” says Rodriquez.

  “Okay, what we're going to do is check some of your story out and arrange to get you out of here, so you can show us where Lonnie was dumped,” says Liam. “Until then, we'll have you placed in protective custody and put into a single cell.”

  “Hey, you guys owe me something!” says Rodriquez.

  “All I have is seven cigs left in this pack,” says Zim. “I promise if what you've told us leads us to Lonnie Jackson, I'll buy you a carton of cigarettes.”

  “Okay. I'll take those seven cigs now, though,” says Rodriquez.

  “How will you get them back to the cell without getting busted on a search?” asks Zim. He removes all of his cigarettes from his last pack and gives them to Rodriquez. Rodriquez reaches down and puts her right hand underneath her jail pants, and smiles as she secures the cigarettes in her vagina. Liam and Zim get up from the table, open the interview door and summon a detention officer.

  “Please place her back into protective custody, single cell if you can,” requests Liam.

  Rodriquez is escorted down the hall away from Liam and Zim.

  Zim turns to Liam and says, “Witness, my ass! She called Lonnie there to rob him and got caught up in a murder.”

  Liam replies, “Hey, it'll be up to the D.A. on whether she's a witness or an accomplice, but she's fucking dirty if you ask me. She sold out Bobby and Randall Dale for seven cigarettes, Zim. I'll brief the facility commander on what we found out and see if he can arrange to have a female detentions officer accompany us to the shipyards to locate Jackson. In the meantime, see if there's been a missing person’s report made out on Jackson,” says Liam.

  “I'm on it like a hobo on a ham sandwich, Liam,” says Zim.

  “I guess this means no Friday night boom-boom for you,” says Liam.

  “Fucked again,” says Zimmer.

  The two split up and soon find each other back in the facility commander's office.

  “A missing person’s report was filed three days ago on a Lonnie Theodore Jackson. A black male, sixty-seven years old, living in Charlestown off School Street,” says Zim.

  “Listed on the missing person’s report was Jackson's red 1984 Cadillac Deville, Massachusetts license 3R-3821.”

  “Good job, Zim. I've arranged for a female detentions officer as an escort for Rodriquez, and for the dive team to meet us at the shipyards in South Boston,” says Liam.

  “Liam, I'll bet she asks for something more before she shows us where Jackson was dumped,” says Zim.

  “Could be, Zim...but we need that body, or we don't have shit. We have nothing more than a story, unless we locate Randall or Bobby Dale and they cooperate,” says Liam.

  Rodriquez and a female detentions officer meet up with Liam and Zim in the parking lot of the Sout
h Boston Detention Facility. They leave the facility and drive in the unmarked detective's vehicle toward the shipyards.

  Rodriquez states, “You guys are going to transfer me out of South Boston, right? I mean, I can't stay there after this.”

  “How do you know what Bobby and Randall Dale told you, about their mother working at the jail, was even the truth?” asks Zimmer.

  “I don't, but why would they lie to me?”

  Liam looks at Zim and says, “She's right, there's no reason to drop that information on her. They gain nothing by telling her that.”

  Rodriquez directs them to an area off 16th Street, near the docks to one of many shipyards in the Charlestown, South Boston, area. They stop their vehicle and get out. Rodriquez walks over to the edge of the dock and says,

  “This is it. This is where they rolled him over.”

  Zim and Liam look at each other in surprise and disbelief.

  “What do you think?” asks Zim.

  “She didn't even have to look around. I mean, bam! The first stop, this is it. She's fucking playing us,” says Zim, out of earshot of Rodriquez.

  Liam looks over the dock's edge and sees murky water. He calls for the police dive team to respond to his location. Liam is told it will be about twenty minutes before they'll arrive.

  “I'm so glad I called them ahead of time, or we'd be waiting an hour or more,” says Liam.

  “Zim, take the unit and get some burgers and drinks for us all. I'll stay here with the ladies. It's getting late, and we could be here a while.”

  Liam takes Zimmer to the side, away from the women, gives Zim two twenties and says, “I want change back this time...no booze for you! Just straight Coke.”

  Zim takes the money, smiles and drives off.

  Twenty minutes pass and the dive team arrives and starts to set up lights and check equipment. Liam briefs the lieutenant in charge of the team and explains the possible location of a homicide victim. A short time later, Zim returns with several bags of food and drinks from McDonald’s. The lieutenant tells Liam they'll drop a long pole with a camera attached down the side of the dock and see if they can locate the body before divers hit the water. Zim begins to dole out the food and drinks to Rodriquez, the detention officer, himself, and Liam. He takes Liam aside, returns the change and tells Liam, “A bottle of Jack they can't find the body.”

  “You're on. But if they do, I'll take Jameson,” says Liam.

  Liam walks over to the dive team and stands near the camera monitor. The camera is dropped into the water near the point Rodriquez indicated Jackson's body was dumped. After a brief search of three to five minutes, the body is located. There are several chains and car alternators wrapped around the head and upper torso. The body is on the floor of the ocean, which is about thirty-five feet deep. Liam turns to Zimmer and says, “Zim, they found him. Come here and see!”

  “I told you he was there,” says Rodriquez, as she continues eating her hamburger like it was her last meal. Liam looks at Rodriquez, who continues to eat, grabbing more fries.

  Liam says, “You don't need to be transferred to another jail, you need to be taken to a zoo!” shaking his head in disgust.

  The dive team deploys and retrieves the body of Lonnie Theodore Jackson. The coroner examines the body for injuries prior to being transported to the morgue. Jackson has sustained a single stab wound to the left side of his neck and several stab wounds to his chest, like Maria Rodriquez said. Jackson was transported to the morgue for further examination. Now with the body of Jackson located, Zimmer and Liam's next task was to identify and to locate Bobby Dale and Randall Dale.

  “Let's head back to the jail and make arrangements for Rodriquez to be transferred,” says Liam. They transport Rodriquez back to the South Boston Detention Facility. While Rodriquez is being escorted back to her cell, the facility commander speaks with Zim and Liam. He tells Liam that he printed out a list of all his employees, both sworn personnel and civilian staff, per Liam's request.

  “What the fuck is this?” asks Zim.

  Liam says, “Zim, she was afraid that the brother's mother worked here. Check the list and see if we still have the luck of the Irish with us tonight. Look for a woman with the last name of Pentacast, Pente-something.”

  Zimmer looks through the list of employees while Liam calls Lieutenant Johnson and briefs him on the status of the investigation. While Liam is talking to the lieutenant, Zimmer says, “Un-fucking believable,” and points to a name on the list.

  Liam hangs the phone up and turns to Zimmer.

  “What?” he asks.

  Zim shows him the list of names and points to Connie Pentecost, a kitchen specialist, currently working the morning shift. Liam asks the facility commander if he has access to the computer personnel files. He says, “Yes what would you like to know about Connie Pentecost?”

  “How old is she?” asks Liam.

  The commander accesses a computer and starts to search the employees' data file.

  “Okay, I got her here in the system. Let's see, she's...forty-nine,” says the commander.

  “That would be about right,” says Zim. “Does she list any relatives on any of her emergency contact forms?”

  “Yes, she lists three children. A daughter, Cathy, and two sons, Bobby Dale and Randall Dale Pentecost,” says the commander.

  “Bingo, we have a bingo! Luck of the Irish, Zim,” says Liam.

  Zim says, “I'll bet the brothers have a record someplace. Commander, do you have the ability to check individual's arrest records on your computer here?” asks Zim.

  “I sure do,” says the commander. “Let me check and see the last time they've been arrested.”

  “We are assuming they have been arrested,” says Liam.

  “These fuckers have been arrested. The information Rodriquez gave us was spot on,” says Zim. “She said she saw both of the brothers with what she thought were prison tattoos on their back and arms, remember?”

  “They're in our system,” says the commander. “They were both arrested three days ago in Charlestown.”

  “For what?” asks Liam.

  “Possession of stolen property, and possession of a controlled substance, Methamphetamine,” says the facility commander.

  “Oh shit! What?”asks Zim and Liam,

  “They're currently being housed here.” The facility commander looks at Liam and Zim, and says, “They're here, just two floors up.”

  “Let's get some photos of the brothers and confirm with Rodriquez that they are our guys before she gets transported outta here in the next hour or so,” says Liam.

  d

  I'm on track and making good time, thinks Liam. I'm in Florence, South Carolina, at three-thirty in the morning. I need a Starbucks, though. That shit will keep me amped up for a few hours. He fills the Cruiser with fuel, sees a Starbucks across the freeway and heads that way. He laughs as he thinks back to the Jackson case and the sheer dumb luck that came their way during the investigation. He remembers how Zim swaggered around the detective division for a week, declaring how he and Liam had solved an unreported murder for seven cigarettes. Liam thinks back to how Zim was proud that he was relevant again, not just an old, burned-out drunk.

  Liam gets his favorite coffee, a plain black Grande, and remembers how Kelley would tease him for just getting a plain coffee. Never willing to try the other blended drinks that they were so well known for. He thinks back to what he would always tell her: “I know what I like, that's why I stay with it. I've been married to you for over thirty years, haven't I?” Kelley would just smile and hug him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she would tell him, “You've kissed the Blarney Stone a few too many times, my husband, but you can warm my bed anytime.”

  Liam starts back on the road, thinking that his next stop should be Richmond, Virginia. He wants to call T.J. and ask if the dead visitor in Port Saint Lucie is either the son or relative of Bobby Dale Pentecost or Randall Dale Pentecost, currently residing in Hazelton Unite
d States Penitentiary in West Virginia. Liam decides to wait a few more hours until it's eight or nine a.m. in Boston.

  Liam remembers that once Maria Rodriquez identified the brothers, they refused to talk with him and Zim. Six months after the brothers were charged with first-degree murder, Liam testified in Boston's Federal Court, for five days, on the murder of Lonnie Theodore Jackson. The Federal prosecutor decided that the two white supremacist brothers should be tried in Federal court under a new hate crime act brought into law early in the '90's. The Boston Police Department and the Attorney General's Office got lots of good PR out of the capture and conviction of the Pentecost brothers. The brothers were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. After the brothers were found guilty, the prosecutor allowed Maria Rodriquez to plea to second-degree murder. Maria was sentenced to ten years in a Federal prison, with a chance at early parole. Liam and Zim each gave Rodriquez a carton of cigarettes as she was loaded onto the bus and headed for Federal prison.

  Chapter 7

  HANGING BY A THREAD

  LIAM CONTINUES HIS DRIVE TO BOSTON, planning his next stop to be in Newark, New Jersey. I'll call T.J. then, maybe he can get me some answers as to why this kid is after me now. He thinks about Sandy and how she's doing with Tina. Tina has brought back feelings he had only shared with Kelley. He's not sure just how to react to her. He feels as though he's being unfaithful to Kelley for letting himself feel again for another woman. I'm a mess, he thinks. My hands shake like I'm jacking off a squirrel, I'll cry if I smell something that reminds me of Kelley, and yet I can't deny the attraction to Tina. He also knows if he doesn't figure out who wants him dead, none of this will be a problem much longer.

  The long drive continues from state to state until reaching the next scheduled stop in Newark. Liam refills the Cruiser and buys more jerky and Gatorade. He calls T.J. from the pay phone in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts shop.

  “T.J., my brother.”

  “Liam, are you all right?” asks T.J.

  “Yeah, I'm hanging in there. T.J., I'm headed back to Boston. I'm in Newark now, so I've gotten or so more hours before I get there. Can you check something out for me, please?” asks Liam.