by Jeff Lindsay
The picture cut to a head shot of Frank Kraunauer. He looked much better than the picture of me. In fact, he looked magnificent: angry, yet composed, intelligent, formidable, and every hair in perfect place, which is very important to all major news outlets nowadays.
“There’s no longer any question that Mr. Morgan is being railroaded,” he said. “From the very beginning the evidence has been manipulated or even manufactured. My client has been falsely accused, unjustly and improperly jailed, and even physically assaulted by a member of the Miami-Dade police force.”
An earnest tenor voice cut in and the camera swung to the reporter, Matt Laredo, a young guy with wonderful brown hair and a very serious look. “Mr. Kraunauer, you want us to believe your client was assaulted by a cop?”
Back to Kraunauer. “He went into police custody last night unmarked, and came out of custody with a huge bruise on his face.” He favored the reporter with a sardonic smile, one I hadn’t seen before, bringing his total to eight separate great fake smiles. I was overcome with admiration and almost missed him saying, “No doubt the police will tell you he hit himself. But I have a witness who saw the officer hit my client. This is the same rogue cop who threatened my client’s life.”
Matt Laredo jumped in. “Where is your client now? Can we talk to him?”
Kraunauer gave him a pitying look. “No, of course not. Mr. Morgan feels that it isn’t safe to show his face, and I agree.” Kraunauer paused, a perfect two-second interval for maximum dramatic effect. “Mr. Morgan’s life was threatened. By a cop. And then somebody…put a bomb in his car.”
Matt Laredo’s face filled the screen, wearing a wonderfully crafted expression of dubious amazement and shock. Great hair and acting ability—the kid had network potential. “Mr. Kraunauer,” Laredo said, “are you asking us to believe that a police officer planted this bomb?”
Back to Kraunauer, who left Laredo in the dust, facially speaking, with a superb expression of cynical amusement, combined with disgust and angry outrage. “Draw your own conclusions,” he said grimly. “I make no accusations. But the threats were made, and then the bomb happened—and it would be very convenient for certain members of the police department if Dexter Morgan was no longer able to testify against them.”
The camera jumped to Matt Laredo, standing at my previous hotel, with the blasted ruins of my car behind him. “Anita, it seems like a clear-cut story of a multiple murder is morphing into an epic case of police corruption and cover-up, and it begs the question: How high does this go? And just how much can we trust our cops to do their job fairly and honestly? With or without Frank Kraunauer, we suddenly have some huge questions…and very few answers.”
Three full seconds of Matt Laredo looking nobly serious, and then back to the breathless blonde in the studio. “Thanks, Matt. And federal authorities have now intervened in the case, although terrorism is not suspected at this time. And that sure makes it look like the FBI doesn’t trust the Miami-Dade police, either.”
The picture behind her changed to an aerial shot of a pod of whales, and the blonde went right on without skipping a beat. “Another tragedy on the beaches of South Florida, as eleven pilot whales have been stranded near Everglades City. Debbie Schultz is on the scene.”
Even with Debbie Schultz on the scene, it was hard to get worked up about the tragic plight of a few whales, when poor Disheveled Dexter was in such terrible straits. I turned off the TV. Of course, it meant that I would never get to admire Debbie’s hair. It might even be riffled by a light breeze, and that was always a marvelous news moment. But perhaps I could comb my own hair instead. Besides, the coffee was ready. As I sipped it, I tried very hard not to gloat, but I admit a few sly smirks snuck out anyway. Kraunauer had done a wonderful job. He was worth every penny I wasn’t paying him. He even made me believe I was a poor innocent victim of an evil corrupt police force. And of course I was, at least in this one case, but I would never have dared to suggest it if not for Kraunauer.
The coffee did its job, too, and I was almost up to normal speed when my phone began to chirp. I glanced at it; the call was from Vince Masuoka. I picked up the phone and answered. “Hi, Vince,” I said.
“Dexter, my God! Are you all right?” he said in a voice that was near hysteria. “I mean, I know you must be, because—But holy shit! A bomb! The news said? And you were—I mean, are you? Okay, I mean?”
Vince’s outburst had been so frantic it was near the legal definition of assault, but I gathered he had seen something in the news similar to what I had just watched. “I’m fine, Vince, really,” I said. “Just a couple of scratches.”
“Oh, my God, but you could have been killed!” he said.
“I think that was the idea,” I said, but he was already rushing on.
“Jesus, Dexter—a bomb?! And they just…I mean, who would do that? To you, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But the FBI is handling it now. They took it away from Anderson.”
“Anderson?” he said, sounding even more alarmed. “But that’s—Anderson is…” He lowered his voice to a near whisper and added, “Dexter, you think Anderson might have—I mean,” he said, dropping to a full whisper, “I found out he’s reading my e-mail.”
It’s always wonderful to witness the emotional agility that some people with actual feelings can manage, and Vince had just performed a truly acrobatic feat, from concern for my life right to a petty problem he was having at work, all without losing a step. But beyond that, it was interesting in another way. Anderson? Hacking? “Vince, that’s not possible,” I said. “Anderson can barely work his phone.”
“I’m positive, Dexter,” Vince said. “I wrote a note to my mother? Just, you know, about going to see her at Easter. And then Anderson comes up to me and he says, ‘What makes you think you’ll still be alive at Easter, Masookoh?’ He calls me Masookoh,” he added, in case I wanted to remind him that wasn’t really his name.
“Oh,” I said. It certainly sounded like Anderson was, in fact, reading Vince’s e-mail. “He must have some technical help.”
“I know, but it could be anybody,” Vince said. “Dexter, this thing is just crazy—it’s like everybody is in on it all of a sudden, and I—I mean, it’s so totally overwhelming….”
Vince sounded like he was about to cry, which would have been a bit much for me, so I tried to calm him down. “It’s almost over, Vince,” I said. “It’s all coming to a head now. You just hang on for a couple of days.”
“Days, but Dexter,” he said. “I mean, it’s just crazy here.”
There was more, but I got him calmed down eventually. I told him he was a good boy who had done a good thing and only good things could happen to him, and oddly enough, he began to believe it. So I said I had to go, and promised to call him and let him know what was going on, and put the phone down with a cramp in my neck and a sore ear. Anderson was growing into an even bigger problem, which hardly seemed possible—or fair, for that matter. If this truly was a rational and well-ordered Universe, wouldn’t it be enough that somebody was being chased by a posse of hired killers, and nearly blown up by an enormous bomb? I mean, what was the point of adding Anderson’s persecution on top of that? It really seemed kind of small-minded of the Universe, like cutting off somebody’s legs and then saying, “And you’re ugly, too!”
I thought briefly about doing Something about Anderson, but I quickly realized I was fantasizing rather than planning. He was a problem, yes—but not as immediate as my other ones. I could worry about Anderson if I managed to stay alive for a few more days.
I reached for my phone and called Brian. He answered right away, but instead of hello, he said, “Front page of the Herald, lead story on TV, and now me? So glad you haven’t forgotten the little people now that you’re famous.”
“Fame has its price,” I said. “That was a terrible picture of me.”
“It was,” he said agreeably. “But unfortunately, it’s good enough to help my former friends ident
ify you.”
“I don’t think they need help,” I said.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “And perhaps the phone is not the place to speak of it. Can we meet somewhere?”
“As it happens, I’m hungry,” I said.
“What a surprise,” Brian said.
“It might be wise to pick a new place, though,” I said. “And not because I’m tired of doughnuts.”
“Where would you suggest?” he said.
“Well,” I started—and then stopped as a relatively relevant thought hit me. “Brian, I am carless. Can you come get me?”
“Where are you?”
I told him, and he promised to arrive within a half hour. I spent the next twenty minutes showering, and then looking at my multiple punctures in the mirror. None of them actually seemed life-threatening. In fact, they seemed to be healing up nicely already. I remembered what the paramedic had said, that I looked like a fireman, and I tried out a calendar pose in the mirror. It was not terribly convincing; aside from the fact that I’d never actually seen a fireman calendar, I still had an unhealthy jail pallor to my skin, and it must be admitted that there was a slight roll of nonessential material beginning to form around my waist. I frowned at it, and then realized what I was doing. Oh, Vanity, thy name is Dexter.
I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and dressed in a clean set of brand-new Walmart clothes, and made it down to a place outside the hotel’s front door with five minutes left in Brian’s half-hour interval. I stood beside a large cement urn with a dead-looking tree in it. It also had quite a few cigarette butts squished down into the potting soil. I tried to look casual, but I was anything but as I looked around the parking area and out onto the street. There was no sign of anything living anywhere, aside from two birds on the power line.
I walked nonchalantly down to each end of the building, as if I was just a bored man waiting for a ride, and glanced to the sides. Still nothing. A handful of empty cars. We were past the hotel’s checkout time, and still a few hours before check-in, and the whole place was as lifeless as it could be, which was all to the good.
I stood beside the urn for another two minutes before Brian arrived. Today he was driving his green Jeep, and he stopped it right beside me and I climbed in. “Good morning, brother,” I told him.
“Hardly morning, and not quite good,” he said. “But thank you for the thought.” He drove slowly out onto the street, turned left, and as soon as he got up to speed he made an abrupt U-turn.
“Nicely done,” I said. “All clear?”
“So it would seem,” he said, peering into each of the three mirrors. He turned down a side street, then another, and finally, after several quick detours, out onto U.S. 1. “Well, then,” he said, relaxing visibly. “What shall we eat?”
“Something nice, not too expensive,” I said, and even as I spoke a franchise restaurant hove into view, one that specialized in pie. “There!” I said.
“Pie! How wonderful!” Brian said. “I do like pie.”
He pulled into the parking lot and drove slowly around the whole thing one time, and I did not think it was an excess of caution. He found a parking spot right in front, where the car would be visible from inside, and we went in and found a booth where we could watch it. I ordered a large breakfast, in spite of the small roll at the waist I had seen in the mirror. Time to improve later; today we live. At least, that was the plan.
Brian ordered something called French Silk Pie, and a cup of coffee, and as we waited for the food to arrive, he lifted one eyebrow at me and said, “Have you given any thought to how they found you?”
“Not a great deal,” I admitted. “But my best guess is, they traced the rental car, just like the hotel room. From my credit card.”
Brian looked doubtful. “Maybe,” he said. “But I used a different credit card at the hotel, with a fake name, totally different. So that would mean they already knew your name well in advance. And they didn’t learn it from me.”
“You’re sure?” I said.
“Positive.”
I thought about it, and from Brian’s expression, he was doing the same. A small and vague thought stirred, deep down on the floor of my brain, but as I reached for it a cheerful clamor from my cell phone interrupted me. I picked it up and looked at the screen. I didn’t recognize the number immediately, but it seemed familiar, and just before I pushed the button to decline the call I knew it—Kraunauer. “My lawyer,” I said to Brian.
He waved his permission. “By all means,” he said.
“Mr. Morgan,” Kraunauer said. “The FBI would like to ask you a few more questions.”
“Oh,” I said. Not a truly brilliant response, but he had reminded me that I had not checked in with the feds as I’d said I would. “Um, in your opinion,” I asked, “will these be hostile questions?”
“Not at all,” Kraunauer said. “Apparently just a few loose ends, some bureaucratic stuff. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour. And,” he added in a casually reassuring tone, “I will be there to hold your hand.”
“That’s very thoughtful,” I said.
“All part of the service,” he said. “Can you meet me there in, oh, say, forty-five minutes?”
“Yes, I can,” I told him. “And, Mr. Kraunauer?”
“Mm?”
“That was a wonderful performance on the news,” I said, fighting to keep the naked admiration out of my voice.
Kraunauer chuckled. “I played that kid reporter like a violin,” he said. “It was really much too easy.” There was some background noise, papers rustling and a few whispered words. “Ah—I’m sorry, I have to get going. See you in forty-five minutes,” he said, and hung up.
Brian looked at me with raised eyebrows. “The feds want to ask me a few questions,” I said.
“Oh, dear,” he said. “That sounds a little chancy.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “They seemed reasonable last night—and Kraunauer will be there with me.”
“Well, then,” Brian said. “I guess it will be all right—if there’s still time for some pie?”
“There’s always time for pie,” I said.
EIGHTEEN
In spite of my grand claim, it was closer to fifty-five minutes before Brian dropped me at the corner of NW 2nd Avenue and 165th Street, across the street from the FBI’s Miami Field Office. I didn’t mind the short extra walk across the street and a half block down. Brian was certainly not going to put himself any closer than necessary to such a hornets’ nest of law enforcement.
Kraunauer was waiting for me in the lobby. “There you are,” he said in greeting.
“Yes, sorry to keep you waiting,” I said. “Travel is a little iffy without a car.”
He nodded. “Miami is a big city with a small-town infrastructure,” he said. “They’re waiting for us.” He nodded toward reception, where a young woman in a severe blue business suit stood beside the desk. She was looking at us with a very serious expression, which told me even more certainly than the suit that she was an agent and not a secretary or file clerk.
She led us to a conference room on the second floor, where Revis and Blanton, my two new friends from last night, were waiting. And alas for all that is right and decent in the world, they were not alone. Sitting at the foot of the table, leaning back in his chair and displaying his well-polished sneer, was Detective Anderson.
“Oh, wonderful,” I said. “You’ve arrested him already.”
Kraunauer gave a short snort of amusement, but nobody else thought it was terribly funny—especially not Anderson, who scowled at me, which at least meant he understood me. “Mr. Morgan,” Agent Revis said, taking the lead again. “In the interest of interagency cooperation, we have agreed to allow a representative of the Miami-Dade police to be present at your questioning.”
“You are aware, are you not,” said Kraunauer smoothly, “that this officer has a history of animosity toward my client? As well as a great deal of questionable behavior?”
&n
bsp; “Detective Anderson will not take any active part here,” Blanton said. “He’s here as an observer only.”
Kraunauer looked at me and raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. I shrugged, and he turned back to the feds. “As long as that is clearly understood,” he said. Revis and Blanton nodded in unison. Kraunauer turned to Anderson, but he merely looked away, so Kraunauer shrugged. “Then I have no objections,” he said to Revis. “Let’s get started.”
Blanton pulled out a chair and nodded me toward it; I sat, Kraunauer sat next to me, and the two feds sat side by side across the table from us. Blanton opened a manila folder and frowned into it, but it was Revis who began. “Mr. Morgan, have you ever been arrested for possession of a controlled substance?”
She said it very seriously, as if she was asking whether I had a driver’s license, but it was such a totally loony question I was speechless for several long seconds, and my sad state was not helped by the fact that Anderson had leaned forward with glittering eyes and a new improved version of his sneer. I found my tongue again, but all I managed was a pathetic, “Have I—What, what?”
“Just yes or no, Mr. Morgan,” Blanton said.
“No, of course not,” I said. Anderson shook his head, as if to point out how sad it was when somebody tells blatant fibs.
But Revis just nodded, very calm and reassuring. “How long have you been using illegal drugs?” she said, with a slight emphasis on using.
“Is this really relevant?” Kraunauer said, a slight twist of dry irony in his voice. “That was a bomb in Mr. Morgan’s car. Not a bong.”
Two pairs of Official Federal Eyeballs clicked to Kraunauer, but he just looked back at them with an easy amusement that was contagious, at least to me. I felt like putting my feet up on the table and lighting a cigar.
“We think it might be relevant,” Blanton said.
“Really,” Kraunauer said with mild disbelief. “How so?”
“Counselor,” Revis said. “We have some reason to believe the bomb was built by a known narcoterrorist. And”—she nodded seriously—“we have received information that Mr. Morgan has a well-established pattern of drug use.”