“I get bad sea sick before I step off the dock. Why?”
“I have. Went out for a swordfish about eight years ago off Miami. Were out about four hours before I got a strike. I hung in there for three hours. I couldn’t believe how damned hard it was. I thought I was in good shape, but my arms were about to fall up when suddenly, it was over. I was pulling him toward the boat and guys were slapping me on the back. I looked down and saw the poor bastard just letting me reel him in. I grabbed a knife and cut the line. There are still guys eight years later that rib me about that. Just couldn’t close the deal. But I couldn’t do it.
“You let the fish run to exhaust it. I don’t know what we’ll get if we grab Maitland. Maybe answers, maybe we’ll screw up an important pipeline into the Rojas organization. I have no idea what we’re dealing with. I feel like I’m walking into a pitch dark room not knowing who or what is in there. So for now, I’m going to let Maitland run. Maybe I’ll learn enough to ask the right questions. He’s been in Jacksonville forever. Built a life and a career. His ex and kids are there. I don’t think he’ll run, but we’ll be watching him.”
“Okay, your call. Just remember this when the next opening comes up in your section.
“Course.”
Five minutes later:
“Roberta, this is Jeremy Prentice. How would you like to do me a big favor. Big favor.”
“As in, how big?
“I have an assignment that will take two or three people. Not field agents because I don’t think there’s going to be anything but research and interviewing. And there’s no immediate rush or deadline. Doesn’t have to be completed by any time certain. But I’d like a report within a month or so.”
“How about your first born?”
“Talk to Susie. She’s in charge of that.”
“Of course. If you’re asking I’ll see that it gets done. What’s the assignment?”
“It’s down in Jacksonville but most of the actual legwork will probably be done in West Virginia.”
“Jacksonville? Oh, the place where the Jaguars play?”
“Yeah, Northeast Florida. Anyway, I’m doing a deep background investigation into a State’s Attorney – Assistant – down there that might be handling the Mendoza case. William Maitland.”
“The Angel of Death?”
“How famous is the guy? I didn’t think you paid that much attention to anything but ‘Survivor,’ and ‘American Idol” outside of your legal reading.”
“C’mon. He’s cool. Loving husband who gets screwed over by his slut wife and becomes the embodiment of justice, puts all his passion into the courtroom. Somebody ought to make a miniseries.”
“They probably will. But seriously, Roberta, he’s just another lawyer. I didn’t think a hard headed, hard driving professional broad like yourself would fall for that soap opera crap?”
“Broad, huh. I can see sensitivity training in your future. But for your information, it’s a great story. And have you seen his picture? Slender, and that bald head. There’s something more than vaguely phallic about that. And those eyes. Tortured eyes. Sad eyes. You want to hug him and make him feel better,”
“Jesus Christ, Roberta, my opinion of your taste in men drops with every word you speak.”
“You’re just jealous, Jeremy. Women love tragic figures.”
“Losers.”
“He’s a world famous trial lawyer. Bet there are more Googles of him than any other 10 big name ambulance chasers.”
“So I can expect you to find some excuse to just drop into the Jacksonville courthouse wearing that red, low cut tube top and accidentally run into the Angel of Death?”
“He’s more appealing as a romantic figure than a date. I spend enough time with men bitching about their exes already.”
“Ho-Kay. Here’s the deal. I want you to profile Maitland’s mother. I think she’s alive. I know Maitland, who’s 42, was born in West Virginia. I want you to do a complete workup on her background. Where was she born? How did she meet Maitland’s father, who died in some sort of mine accident while he was young? How was the marriage? And look at the year BEFORE Maitland was born.
“Talk to any friends or family of his or hers from the time when Maitland was born. Do the ‘high security background check’ because Maitland is being considered for a federal government job and the interviewees can never say anything to anyone about the interviews.
“They were probably young, teens or early 20s. Did they break up prior to or after their marriage? Did she stay in the small town where she was probably living with hubby, or did she go away for any length of time before coming back?”
“Is this leading where I think it is?”
“Yes. Look for trouble in the marriage. Did she have any old boyfriends, any new male figures in her life that might have shown up in that period of her life?”
“And why are we doing this?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you. And, while you’re doing that, look into the history of
Leandro Rojas, a Columbian national. Forty two years ago he would have been in his early 30s, we think.”
“Is that-“
“Yes. Today he’s a mythic figure shrouded in shadows. But 40 years ago he would have been a rising figure in the Columbian crime world. There are probably American intelligence sources, Columbian Army or police, newspaper reporters, that would have known him and something about his movements at the time. Maybe you can find an old mistress or girlfriend. Hell, there may be ex-wives.”
“And?”
“Look hard and see if there’s any way the two of them could have come into contact.”
“A small town Southern girl, probably recently married, and a Columbian drug kingpin on another continent?”
“I know it seems like a stretch. But – things happen. Maybe she had a fight with hubby and went to visit an aunt in New York. Or Miami? Maybe he was in the U.S. on business and they shared a plane ride? Maybe they met while she was shopping or getting drunk with friends and trying to forget the marriage. He wasn’t an old man then. She wasn’t a sainted elderly mother and grandmother.”
“But what would cause you to suspect an affair – or a one-night stand – 40 years ago? And why the hell would anyone care?”
“I can’t tell you Roberta. And I care enough to assign a team to check out it. And I care enough to insist this has to be HIGHEST priority clearance. This is personal between you and me. I don’t want anyone outside your group to know anything about what you’re doing. Tell Krutz that it’s a routine clearance check prior to the Mendoza trial if it heads for Jacksonville.
If he asks you any questions. And if he gets to be a pain, call me and I’ll take care of things.”
“How soon do you want me to assemble a team and get started?”
“Yesterday.”
CHAPTER TWENTY: THE WIND IS RISING
November 16, 2005
Tuesday
I was up at 6 a.m., which wasn’t hard considering that I was in bed by 9 p.m. the previous night. After my breakup session with Myra – and God, every time I thought about it I felt 16 years old again - I fell right back into the work and exercise focused routine I’d been in after my divorce. I just decided that instead of thinking about Myra and that godlike body and the genuine affection she had shown toward me, for a few days I’d go on an emotional cleansing health regimen.
I did not think about sex – very much – and I spent three hours at Hurly’s and an hour at Carlos’ gym. If I ran and lifted and jumped rope and pounded the heavy bag long enough I’d work off all those poisonous sexual toxins. I’d been focused too much on sex recently. The last few years in a rapidly cooling bed with Debbie might not have been my prime sexually, but I’d gotten a hell of a lot of work done.
And somehow it wasn't ‘t too hard to get into that frame of mind again. I knew that golden body was sitting in a desk only one floor over my head. That soft ass wearing the silken panties I hadn’t known she preferred squir
med in her chair, those huge heavy breasts rose and fell, the nipples sometimes rubbing against the fabric of her heavy bra until she told me once that sometimes she fantasized about highly inappropriate figures.
I laughed until I hurt myself when she had once told me who one of those figures was. Thinking about that, I realized we had probably broken it off at the right time. It suddenly dawned on me that I missed those moments of shared laughter almost as much as I missed the incandescent sex.
She had been right. I would have fallen for her and wanted something more from her than she was willing or able to give. So the memories of what I was no longer going to enjoy hurt, but not as bad as I’d expected. Myra had been right, I wasn’t ready to be single. I was going through the motions, but in my heart I hadn’t begun to think like a single man.
Working myself to exhaustion yesterday, and three hours at Hurly’s this morning, I felt a familiar veil drawing down around myself. It was like viewing the world through a gray film, one step removed from the concrete world around me. It made the emotions of sorrow, anger, loss less real and immediate.
It made it easier to turn my attention completely back to my working life.
And life went on.
At 10 a.m. Carlisle walked into my office without getting a wave though and just sat himself in a chair opposite me. He gave me a quick smile. Despite our prickly beginning, we’d worked well together since. He was a hard worker who put 150 percent into his job, because although he had a girlfriend, a teacher in some Jacksonville high school, they weren’t married and he didn’t have a relationship where he had to choose. I hope he made it to a managerial position where he didn’t have to devote most of his life to his job before he had to choose between his teacher and the job.
“We’re still doing the backgrounds on the 10 murder victims and there are a couple that might be possibles, but there’s one that feels right.”
“Tell me.”
“A cop named Lee Henry. With the Spring City Police Department in Spring County. Between Ocala and Gainesville. Highway 301 runs through it and it would be one of the two ways Sutton could have traveled north from Ocala on his way to kill his wife. Highway 95 would require him to travel east to hook up with 95 and there would be more stops, more cities, more chances for him to run into somebody that might remember him. 301 runs through a lonelier stretch more toward the center of the state.
“Timing?”
“Sometime during the night or early the next morning four days after Sutton’s wife was murdered, according to what the ME said. Henry had been working the night shift the night that Sutton’s wife disappeared. He had switched to days and had gone home when firefighters were called to the wooden cabin he lived in that night. It looked like a propane explosion had set the cabin on fire. He lived off in a relatively isolated stretch of woods a few miles from Spring City.”
Carlisle tossed a couple of photographs onto my desk. The burnt out remains of a wooden structure in a heavily wooded area. And then two more showing what had to be the badly burned remains of a big dog and a human being.
“The ME down there said neither Henry nor the dog, a big German Shepherd, had been shot. Because of the fire it was hard to be sure, but it looked like somebody beat Henry’s brains in with some kind of club and stabbed the dog to death. Now an investigation showed some of Henry’s belongings, a wallet, some other items including a pistol, that had apparently been taken out and scattered away from the fire.
“The Spring City Police report says it appears that Henry and the dog were overcome by a burglar who stole various items and probably set the cabin on fire after killing Henry and the dog to cover his tracks. It also says nobody down there believes that for one minute.”
“Yeah, hard to see a regular burglar going up against an armed cop and a dog without a gun. More likely whoever killed the cop threw the stuff around outside and set the house on fire to make it look like a bungled burglary.”
“That’s what they think too,” Carlisle said. “I talked to their chief for a few minutes. But I definitely think it’s got promise. The only thing no one can figure out is why anybody would have wanted to kill the cop. They’ve been working this – hard – for eight months and tracked a lot of leads and haven’t come up with anything.”
“Sutton could have run into the cop on his way up to Jacksonville or on his way back after killing his wife and son,” I said as hope exploded inside me. “If Sutton had done something to attract the cop’s attention and that might have linked him to his wife’s murder, he could have gone back to remove a loose end.”
“That’s what we’re thinking,” Carlisle said. “But what could have scared Sutton bad enough to go up against a cop that would shoot back and a dog that would rip his balls off. You’re not talking about a woman and a fetus.”
“That’s what you’re going to find out. Jasper Hill in Felony 3 is going to retire in six months. We’re going to need a new head attorney for his division. You crack this, and I have a strong feeling that might be you.”
He just stared at me for a moment. Standing up, he held out his hand.
“I never did apologize for what I said that day, Mr. Maitland. I was pissed, but there’s no excuse for kicking a man when he’s down. I’ve got a girlfriend who is probably going to turn into a fiancée if I get that promotion. If she – if something like that happened to me – it would tear my heart out.”
“I was saying a lot of things back then. Remember what I said. You’re entitled to be stupid when you’re young. You’ve done a good job since. Forget it.”
As soon as I put the phone down Cheryl buzzed me.
“Mr. Maitland. McConnell at St. Vincents.”
I knew it couldn’t be good, but I wasn’t prepared for the flat, “Bell’s dead, Bill.”
November 16, 2005
Tuesday, 2 P.M.
I saw McConnell waiting in the hallway as I stepped out of the elevator and headed for Bell’s room. A half dozen evidence techs, the Beat Lieutenant, and surprisingly, Sheriff Knight., stood near the nurse’s station along with Dr. Bartram Williams, his cardiologist and one of the top cardiac surgeons in the state.
He had been taking care of Bell since his initial heart attack and, having privileges at most area hospitals, had been responsible for transferring Bell from Baptist Medical Center to St. Vincent’s simply because of his belief he’d have better odds there.
Williams, 60, and bald as a billiard ball and round as a barrel, stepped toward me, a glowing cigar held between the fat fingers of his right hand. I noticed the dirty looks he got from several of the nurses and a woman I would have bet was a hospital administrator. He shifted the cigar to his left hand and held out his right.
I took it, not sure what was happening.
“I wanted to shake the hand of a decent lawyer. I’m not sure I’ve ever had the chance to do that before.”
“Thanks, but-“
He took my arm just above the elbow and said, “Walk with me for a minute. Away from crowd.”
We walked away toward a supply closet on the other side of the nurse’s station. As he did he, with great evident glee, brought the cigar to his lips, took a deep lungful and then released a wreath of cigar smoke. The look of the nurses at the station, particularly one older brunette with a decent body but a stare that would have turn any human to stone, told me he was not universally beloved.
“Aren’t you violating any number of hospital protocols smoking that thing in the hospital, on a floor with patients, in front of a nurse’s station and probably hospital administrators?”
He looked back at the station, smiled and directed a wink at the Gorgon. If she had had a firearm in her hands I would have been diving for cover.
“Probably, but I’ve taught most of the heart surgeons operating in this city, I’ve got the best operating results of any cardiac surgeon in Florida, my son is engaged to the Lieutenant Governor’s 30-year-old daughter who is not good looking enough to ever get another man like m
y boy in the sack and I saved the lives of the current senior senator from Florida’s mother AND father after major heart attacks over the past ten years. I could shit in this corridor and they would just keep smiling and clean it up.”
He glanced back at the nurse’s station and added, “And Nurse Ratched back there – the one with the great tits and the look of somebody who has been constipated for too long – I banged her brains out between my third and fourth wives and she just didn’t believe me when I told her it was just an office thing.”
He stopped and took another puff.
“I talked to Wilbur after you brought him in from the River. That was a gutsy thing to do.
I don’t know any attorney with the kind of shit case you’ve got that would gamble with losing the ONLY thing he had going to let a dying old man enjoy the sunshine one last time. It makes no sense legally.”
He took another long puff and held it for a minute, let the smoke out and said, “I just wish this was pot. But, anyway. I don’t know that anyone is ever ready to go. But, I’ve seen enough of them over the years to know that Wilbur had made his peace. And I think that little trip out into the fresh air was a big part of it. I just wanted to tell you that. For what it’s worth.”
“Thank you. It’s worth a lot.”
“Just out of curiosity, why did you do it?”
“I could say it was the right thing to do. Most people want to run as far and fast away from the legal system as they can. A natural response. The legal system is a great thing when you’re in deep shit and drowning. Otherwise, it can be a very unpleasant place to be. Witnesses can be hard to find and harder to keep. But Wilbur came to us and volunteered. He stayed with us even when he knew he was dying. I know he didn’t like Old Lady Sutton, but that’s not enough reason to do what he did. I promised him I’d try to get him out in the fresh air one time before – the end. So I did.”
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