Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (23 page)

“I called the number and I talked to some woman. She said they’d pay me ten thousand dollars to kill you, and another twenty thousand to kill your friends.”

“How did you know where my friends were?”

“I seen ’em drive up and park. When I went outside to call the number, the car was still there. I figured that was how you got here.”

“Who threw the grenade?”

“That’d be my cousin.”

“What’s his name?”

“Rocky Mallot. He lives in Belleville.”

“Who was driving the Mercedes?”

“I don’t know. I was told that some guy in a Mercedes would be there. Rocky was supposed to wait until he saw the car to toss that grenade.”

“Did you kill Jason?”

“No, sir. He was my friend.”

“But you didn’t think anything about selling his confidential information to somebody you didn’t know?”

“Jason didn’t need the money, and I knew my brother. It wasn’t like I told just anybody.”

“What’s the Web address you check out every day?”

“I don’t know. It’s a different one each day.”

“How do you find out what it is?”

“It shows up on my e-mail.”

I was surprised. “You’ve got e-mail?”

“Sorta. They set me up with an AOL e-mail address. I go to the library
every day and look at the e-mail. Lots of stuff comes in, you know, stuff to make my johnson bigger, stuff like that. But I always get an e-mail with a Web address on it. I check it out, write down the phone number, and I’m done.”

“What’s the number for today?” I asked.

“It’s on a piece of paper in my shirt pocket.”

I reached down and retrieved the paper. “What’s your e-mail address?”

He gave it to me.

“Password?”

“Turk.”

“That’s original.”

“I didn’t want to forget it.”

“Let me have your cell phone,” I said.

“It’s in my pants pocket.”

“Which one?”

“Right one.”

His hands were still cuffed behind his back. I turned him onto his left side, reached into his right pants pocket and retrieved the phone. I went into its log and saw the last number he’d called. The area code was 941. The Sarasota Bay area.

I turned to Jock and Logan who’d been standing quietly a few feet from us. “Okay guys. Let’s dump this turd in the ditch.”

“No,” said Turk, his voice rising. “You said you’d let me go.”

“Yeah, but that was only if you told me everything. You’re holding back.”

“I’m not. Honest. I told you everything I know.”

I motioned to Jock and Logan. They came over and picked him up, Jock grabbing him under the arms and Logan taking his feet. They started walking toward the ditch, carrying Turk. He was squirming, trying to get out of the grip of those about to throw him to the gators. They got to the edge and stopped. I walked over. “You sure you got nothing else to say Turk? It might mean you won’t die tonight.”

He was sobbing, his breath coming in gasps, fear distorting his facial features. “I swear, Mr. Royal. I told you everything I know.”

“Put him down,” I said. I thought Turk was scared enough now that he’d tell me anything to save his skin. I thought we’d wrung him dry. “The gators won’t eat tonight, Turk.”

We left him on the bank of the ditch sucking in great gulps of air. We walked off a hundred feet or so. “What are we going to do with him?” Jock asked.

“Let’s untie him and let him go. By the time he gets to Bellville, we’ll be back in Longboat.”

Logan looked a bit perplexed. “We’re just going to let him try to kill us and get away with it?”

Jock said, “Let’s put him on ice for a few days. We don’t want him communicating with whoever is pulling his strings.”

“Should I call Charlie Forman?” I asked.

Jock shook his head. “Let me get a team out here from Miami. They can keep him for a few days where nobody will find him.”

“How do you do that, Jock?” asked Logan.

“I’ve got lots of seniority and the director trusts me.”

“What then?” asked Logan. “Anybody got any bright ideas?”

“Not really,” I said. “But we have to figure out who’s behind this. It could be somebody inside the police. Plus, we’ve still got to talk to Baggett. Thursday is his night.”

“We just going to waltz into that bar and ask Baggett to tell us what’s going on?” asked Logan.

“We’ll have to work a little smarter than that,” Jock said. “Maybe I can get us some help.” He walked toward the car, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

We were on Interstate 75 nearing Venice, when my cell phone rang. Charlie Forman.

“Mr. Royal. I need to talk to you.”

“I was going to call you, Lieutenant. I figured you were pretty busy with that car fire.”

“What do you know about that?”

“Nothing. Logan and I were just leaving when we saw it catch fire. What happened?”

“Fire Marshall says somebody blew it up.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No. The car was empty.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Where are you?”

“On the way home.”

“We had another incident here tonight,” Charlie said. “A gangbanger from Miami was shot to death. Do you know anything about that?”

“No. What happened?”

“Don’t really know. He was driving a Mercedes and it looked like somebody shot him through the windshield.”

“You said he was a gangbanger?”

“Yeah. He had a driver’s license in his pocket. The minute we put him into the computer it lit up. He’s got a hell of a rap sheet.”

“Do you think it was connected to the car blowing up?”

“Don’t know. Yet. Did you find out anything in the Swamp Rat?”

“Not much. I talked to a guy named B. J. Cuthbert. He knows a little about it. I think he’d be glad to talk to you.”

“He’s been out of town. What did he say?”

I related what I’d heard in the bar. Then I said, “I didn’t think it was a good idea to meet you in Belleville. I don’t want anybody to know about my role in this thing. In case I have to come back.”

“Good thinking, Matt. I’ll let you know how my talk with B.J. goes. I’ve known him most of my life. I don’t think he’ll fool with me.”

I hung up. “I hate lying to a good man trying to do his job.”

Jock said, “Sometimes it’s necessary.”

We had waited beside the swamp for the better part of two hours when a dark-colored van pulled onto the berm. The headlights blinked twice and Jock walked over to the driver’s window. A low conversation ensued, one that I couldn’t hear. Jock came back with two men who picked up Turk and put him in the back of the van. There were no introductions, no conversation with the men from the van. They left and we began the drive north toward home.

“Do either of you have any bright ideas?” Logan asked.

“I’m not sure how bright they are, but I’ve got some ideas,” said Jock.

“Anybody got any ideas about food?” asked Logan. “I’m hungry.”

“What’re you thinking?” I asked.

“Pizza and beer or Chinese,” said Logan.

“I meant about our problem.”

Jock said, “Let me sleep on it. I may want to bring in some outside help from my agency. This thing seems to have lots of tentacles. It may be more than the three of us can handle.”

We were just taking the off ramp at Fruitville Road when my phone rang again. Blocked number on the caller ID screen. Probably Bill Lester. I answered.

“Matt, what the hell is going on?”

“Good evening, J.D.”

“I just had a conversation with a Collier County Sheriff’s lieutenant who tells me some people were killed and a car blown up in Belleville, and you just happened to be there.”

“Coincidence?”

“Don’t bullshit me, Matt. Where are you?”

“I’m just leaving the Interstate at Fruitville Rd.”

“Meet me on the key.”

“We’re going to the Haye Loft for food. Meet us there.”

“Us?”

“Jock and Logan are with me.”

“You could knock me over with a feather. I’m that surprised.” She hung up.

We drove onto Longboat and stopped at the Haye Loft for pizza and beer. A little coconut cream pie for dessert finished our day. I chided the bartender Eric for overserving Sam, and he promised not to do it again. I thought his grin gave him away though, and Sam would not have to worry about a paucity of alcohol on Eric’s watch.

J.D. came in as we were finishing. She had a determined look about her, her body coiled, stiff, her lips clamped tight, her eyes squinting. She pointed to the three of us at the bar and then to a table in the corner. There was no question about what she meant. We moved quickly like three boys being shown into the principal’s office to explain some egregious breach of school rules. Jock and I had been there before. Back in high school. Only this time, I wasn’t sure that J.D. wouldn’t just start shooting us.

We sat at the table. She stared at each one of us in turn, sat back in her chair, shaking her head. “What were you guys doing in Belleville?”

I started talking. Told her the whole story. About the dead gang-banger, about Turk in a safe agency lockup in Miami, Jock’s rental car being blown up. I explained the connection between Blakemoore and Abraham. Some of it she knew, some of it she didn’t.

“We’re not holding out on you, J.D.,” I said when I’d finished. “We didn’t expect any trouble. I was just nosing around, trying to help the local law.”

J.D.’s face relaxed. “That’s what the deputy said. I talked to an old friend of mine at Miami-Dade PD. They’ve been picking up rumors that one of the Latin gangs in Miami had been paid to kill a lawyer. The kid that pulled the trigger probably did it to get full membership in the gang.”

“Why didn’t Miami-Dade get in touch with Collier County?” Logan asked.

“They never made the connection until tonight. There were no reports of any dead lawyers in Miami, so they pretty much wrote off the
rumor as just that. A rumor. They tied it together when Collier County ran the prints on the guy Jock shot tonight.”

“Was he the one who killed Blakemoore?” Jock asked.

“Looks like it,” said J.D. “The deputy found a shotgun in the trunk of the gangbanger’s car. Had the driver’s fingerprints on it. They can’t tell for certain that it was the one that killed Blakemoore, but they think it probably was. We’ll never know for sure.”

“You want a drink?” I asked.

“You guys have had a long day. Go home.”

“If you’ll drive me home, I’ll have one with you,” I said.

She nodded her head. Asked for a white wine. I called to Eric, asking for another beer and a glass of wine for J.D. Jock and Logan said their good nights to us and Eric and went out into the night.

She took a sip of her wine. “I wish you’d called me before you headed to Belleville. I thought we were becoming a team.”

“I should have called. I’m still not comfortable with getting a cop involved in some of the stuff we get ourselves into.”

She nodded, was quiet for a minute. “I can appreciate that, but at least let me know what you’re up to. I don’t have to get involved.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“What are your plans for tomorrow night? With the biker guy?”

“We don’t have much of a plan. We’re going to the Snake Dance Inn and pull Baggett out of there.”

“Just the three of you?”

“I think we’ll have some help from Jock’s agency.”

“When are you going in?”

“After dark. We want them to get a little liquored up before we start anything.”

“Be careful, Matt,” she said. “I don’t have many friends here. I’d hate to lose one.”

“Count on it,” I said.

We moved onto other topics, small talk, the kind that goes on in bars all over the planet every night of the year. We ordered another round and then another. It was getting late and Eric was doing what bartenders do when they’re hinting that it’s time to go. I paid the tab, over a protest from
J.D. that this should be a Dutch treat. We said goodnight to Eric, walked down the outside staircase to J.D.’s unmarked patrol car, a white Ford Crown Vic.

The parking lot was dark, her car the only one left. A streetlight at the corner gave us a bit of illumination. The old trees that shaded the lot hid the sky. A match flared under the overhang of the restaurant, one of the cooks having his last cigarette before locking up and going home. The shells that covered the ground crackled under our feet. The night air was cool and a hint of moisture floated about us.

She pulled out her keys. I took them from her hand, unlocked the door, opened it for her. She smiled, standing there next to me, so close I could smell her breath, a sweet mixture of fermented grapes and warm girl. She looked at me, her face inches from mine. We were like a stone tableau, immovable, frozen in a moment that seemed to last forever.

I stepped back, gave her room to get into the car. I walked around to the other side, got in, and she drove me to the village. We didn’t talk during the couple of miles to my cottage. It was dead quiet. No music, no radio traffic, just the swish of tires on the pavement, the wind beating at the windshield.

She stopped in front of my house. I looked at her, stared probably, said goodnight, and got out of the car. I watched as she drove off, her tail-lights winking in the darkness.

My phone rang a little after eight on Thursday morning. I was on the patio with a cup of coffee and the morning’s paper. Jock and Logan were still in bed. I looked at the caller ID. Nestor Cobol.

“Good morning, Matt. Hope I didn’t call too early.”

“Not a problem. I’m halfway through the paper.”

“I’ve been meaning to call to let you know I hired Jube Smith. I appreciate your sending him to me.”

“I’m glad that worked out.”

“He’s got a lot of experience. I’ve seen him around over the years, but I didn’t really know him. I knew his wife from over at the diner.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Not good. I put Jube to work on one of my day boats. He’s home every night. Her sister stays with her during the day. I don’t think she has long.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Matt, Jube told me something that I need to talk to you about as soon as possible. Can you meet me at the Star Fish for lunch at noon?”