Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (19 page)

I’d called right after lunch, identified myself, and asked if he had some time to spare that afternoon to tell me a little about the Seminoles of South Florida. Yes, indeed. He loved to chat about the Seminoles and wondered what my interest was. I was vague in my answer, told him that my friend Chief Bill Lester had heard him speak on the topic at a recent lecture in Bradenton, and thought he might be able to help me with a puzzling issue. He agreed to see me at one o’clock in his offices at New College.

The school is the honors college of Florida’s State University System. It draws smart kids from all over the world to its small campus on the shore of Sarasota Bay, out near the airport. I found a parking space in a visitor’s lot and followed directions to the professor’s office in a building fronting on the bay.

He invited me in, shook my right hand with his left, looked at his hook, grinned and said, “Vietnam.”

“Who were you with?”

“Hundred seventy-third Airborne Brigade.”

“You were the first ones in. Came out of Okinawa in May of sixty-five.”

He looked a little surprised. “You’re right. Not a lot of people know that.”

“I was with Fifth Special Forces at the very end of the war.”

He looked closely at me. “Welcome home, brother.”

“And you, too,” I said. It was a fairly new custom among old soldiers. The Vietnam guys had faced almost as much hostility when they came home as they did from the Viet Cong. People were so against the war that they couldn’t separate the soldiers who were serving their country from the animosity they felt toward the government. Many of the men who had served honorably and with valor came home and refused to let anybody know that they had fought for their country. There were no welcoming ceremonies, no thanks from a grateful nation, no appreciation at all from a people these men had served. So now, the old soldiers were welcoming each other home. Finally.

He held up his hook. “One of Charlie’s grenades.”

“How did it happen?” I asked. That’s not normally a question I would have asked, but he seemed to want to talk, maybe share with another soldier who could identify with his loss, or at least how the loss came about.

“Charlie threw a grenade at the hole I was in. I picked it up and tried to throw it back. Apparently my timing was off. It wasn’t too bad, though. I’ve still got my elbow.” He laughed ruefully.

“They’re doing wonders with prosthetics today.”

“I know. But I kind of like the hook. It gives me a rakish look and the ladies take to it.”

I laughed. “To each his own.”

“Did you come out okay?”

“A gut full of shrapnel. But I survived. A lot of my guys didn’t.”

“What can I tell you about the Seminoles?” We were finished with war talk.

I handed him the fax that Bill Lester had received from a deputy in Collier County. “Does any of this mean anything to you?”

He took the paper, looked at it, looked up at me, and frowned. “What is this all about?”

“There is a man named Abraham Osceola in a coma in the hospital. He’s a Black Seminole from Andros Island. I met him last year, and he came looking for me a few days back. I was out of town and somebody bashed his head in. Nobody knows why. I’m trying figure it out. A Collier County deputy found this note in a file of a lawyer who was murdered a few days ago. My name is on it. I don’t know what the other stuff is.”

“The Black Seminoles are real.”

“I know.”

“Do you know how a group of black people happened to become Seminoles?”

“Pretty much. I know the Seminoles fought a couple of wars to protect them from the slave catchers.”

“Right,” said the professor. “That and their land and their way of life.”

“Did the Moultrie Creek Treaty have anything to do with the blacks?”

The professor nodded and told me this story.

Moultrie Creek is up near St. Augustine. In 1823, the Florida governor and federal representatives met with some Seminole chiefs and entered into an agreement that became known as the Camp Moultrie Treaty. The chiefs ceded to the United States government most of the Seminole lands in return for certain farm implements and livestock and an annuity of $5,000 for twenty years. At the end of that time the Seminoles were to agree to emigrate to the Indian lands west of the Mississippi River. The treaty also required the Seminoles to seek out and return fugitive slaves.

Most of the influential chiefs refused to sign the treaty. However, six of their number were finally induced to sign, and many of the Seminoles were required to move onto reservations on the peninsula. The reservation comprised an area of about four million acres east of Tampa Bay and south of the headwaters of the St. Johns River in modern day Brevard County on the east coast of Florida. Others simply refused to leave their land. None of them agreed to return the blacks to the government.

Slaves continued to escape from the plantations of the South and find refuge among the Seminoles. White raiders came onto the reservations and took blacks indiscriminately, including those who had been born free or belonged to the Indians. Blacks whose families had been free for generations were being returned to slavery. The Seminoles resisted and the government withheld their annuity in an effort to force them to return the blacks.

In 1826, Governor William Duval reminded a gathering of Seminole chiefs that the Camp Moultrie Treaty required the Indians to deliver to the Indian agent all blacks that did not belong to the Indians. He told the chiefs that the blacks would lead them astray in hopes of escaping from their rightful owners and that the refuge the Indians gave the blacks was causing an uproar among the white people.

The principal chief, John Hicks, agreed to bring in the runaway blacks, but only if the whites would return to the Indians blacks who had been illegally taken from them. Needless to say, the whites would not agree to this proposition, taking the position that the only blacks they had ever taken from the Seminoles were rightfully owned by whites.

There was little food and starvation threatened the reservations. The Indians began to steal livestock and crops from the white settlers, and on occasion even raided homesteads. The whites were looking for war with the Indians in order to remove them from Florida and secure the Black Seminoles as slaves. The Indians were more than willing to resist with force any attempt to deprive them of their land and black friends.

“So,” I said, “that explains the references to ‘Moultrie Creek,’ ‘large res,’ and ‘black sem.’ The lawyer was probably making notes during a conversation with Osceola. He had been talking about the treaty, the large reservation that was promised, and how the Indians handled the Black Seminole issues. But the Seminoles refused to send the blacks back into slavery, and President Jackson repudiated the treaty.”

“Sort of. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. That law mandated that all Indians east of the Mississippi River who were living on reservations should be removed to the Oklahoma Territory. Many of the Seminoles simply refused to leave Florida.”

“That reservation was a huge tract of land.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Most of central Florida all the way down to the Caloosahatchee River.”

“What about the lawyer’s notation about mineral rights?”

“No idea.”

“Would there have been a will or some sort of testamentary document involved in any of the treaties?”

“I don’t see how anything like that would have made a difference. Why?”

“I used to practice law,” I said, “and a codicil is really just a supplement to a will. I don’t think a lawyer would use that word if he wasn’t talking about a will.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never understood lawyers anyway.”

“If it’s any consolation, neither have I,” I said.

I got home a little before three o’clock. Jock and Logan were at Logan’s condo waiting until the repairs had been made on my house. I’d called Jay, a buddy from Tiny’s, who could do just about any kind of home repairs, and he’d come right over to fix the window and repair the lock on the front door.

I listened to my messages on the answering machine. Both from Lieutenant Foreman. I knew Bill Lester had already talked to him, but he still wanted to hear from me. I picked up the phone and called.

“Lieutenant, this is Matt Royal. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.”

“No sweat, Mr. Royal. Chief Lester told me you’ve been dodging bad guys.”

“That seems to be what I do these days. How can I help you?”

“I’m not sure. When I called you earlier, I was trying to figure out who you were and if you fit into the homicide I’m working down here.”

“Bill Lester told me about that. I didn’t know Jason Blakemoore. I do know Abraham Osceola, and I’ve followed up on some of the stuff on that piece of paper you faxed to Lester.” I told him what I’d learned from Professor Newman.

“Does any of this make any sense?”

“No. Have you got a line on his killers?”

“A complete brick wall. I’d probably write it off as some kind of a random shooting by a bunch of punks from Miami, except for the fact that somebody’s trying to kill you and Osceola. And Jason’s office was turned upside down. I guess somehow they overlooked Osceola’s file. That’s a lot of coincidences.”

“I agree. And I don’t like coincidences.”

“Me neither.”

“Tell me about Blakemoore,” I said.

“Not much to tell. He was a hometown boy, football hero, not too bright. Nobody could ever figure how he got into law school, much less out of it with a degree.”

“Did he do any estate work, like wills, that sort of thing?”

Foreman snickered. “No. I doubt if he knew how to draft a will. He handled some overflow from the Public Defender’s office in Naples, mostly misdemeanors. I doubt he ever handled a felony. I’m sure the PD wouldn’t send him any.”

“What about his secretary? Did she have any ideas?”

“Jason couldn’t afford a secretary. He was a one-man operation. Him and his computer.”

“I would think that in a small town most everybody would know him.”

“They did. Me too, for that matter. I was born and raised in Belleville, but there’re people here who’ve known me all my life and won’t talk to me because I’m the law.”

“Did Blakemoore have a routine? A place he went every day, that sort of thing.”

“He lived in a little house on the edge of town. The same one he’d grown up in. His folks left it to him. He’d walk to work most days, have lunch at our only café, and head for the bar at mid-afternoon, stay two or three hours and go home. He was pretty predictable.”

“Wife, girlfriend, drinking buddies?”

“He never married, and I never heard of him dating anybody. I don’t know if he just had a low libido or if he’d slip off to Miami for some paid-for fun every now and then, if you know what I mean.”

“What about Naples?”

“I didn’t think he’d do anything like that this close to home. I checked with our vice people anyway, and with the Naples cops. None of their snitches ever heard of Jason.”

“If there was a connection there, we’ll never find it in Miami. Too big.”

“You got that right.”

“What about his friends?”

“Mostly guys at the bar. I don’t think he ever hung out with anybody except for those afternoon stops at the Swamp Rat.”

“That’s the bar? The Swamp Rat?”

“Yeah. The only one in town.”

“Do you think any of the people at the Swamp Rat would talk a little more freely to me than they would to you?”

“They might. If they thought you were a friend of Jason’s.”

“Let me think on that. I might come down and have a beer with the boys.”

I thought about it for about five minutes. It would take me about two hours to drive to Belleville. If Blakemoore’s friends thought I was his buddy, I might learn something they were hesitant to tell the law. I called Logan, ran it by him and Jock. They were ready to travel, but I told them I thought it would be best if I went alone. I could explain my coming to town for Blakemoore’s funeral. I’d let them think he and I’d done business together over the years. I might not be able to explain why Jock and Logan were with me. I called Lieutenant Foreman and told him I would be in Belleville that evening.

I went onto the Internet and looked up Jason Blakemoore. There was quite a lot about his football career at the university, but nothing afterward. Apparently the pros thought him too small to play in their league, so his career was over, his name gone from the sports pages. I looked him up on the Florida Bar Web site. No ethical problems. I could find nothing else. He was a cipher.

My Explorer was still in the shop. I’d borrowed Logan’s big Crown Vic for my trip to New College. “Can I use your car tonight?” I asked.

“Sure. We have Jock’s rental.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Take your weapon,” said Logan.

“Don’t worry. I’ll put the Sig in the glove compartment and carry the thirty-eight.”

“Wait a minute, Matt. Jock wants to talk to you.”

“Matt,” said Jock, “I think it would be a good idea if Logan and I came down anyway. In case you need backup. We can take separate cars and we don’t have to let anybody know that we know you.”

“That might not be a bad idea,” I said. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.

It was dark and quiet except for the sounds from the Swamp Rat Bar. Laughter, an old Johnny Mathis song blaring from the jukebox, loud voices, all mixed together in a mélange of noise that floated on the night air, the decibel level waxing and waning as the front door opened and closed, people entering and leaving, the only sign of life in a block of empty storefronts, two-story buildings that ached with age and neglect. The scars of failure were everywhere, a street of broken dreams, of bankruptcy and loss and age and sorrow and regrets for what might have been. Belleville was a town in its death throes. Soon it would be only a memory, an abandoned town reclaimed by the swamp from which it had been wrung. I wondered if the people in the bar knew this and were partying their way to their doom, like people in a town awaiting the plume of radiation slipping inexorably toward them from a faraway nuclear war.