Chasing Justice: A Matt Royal Mystery (42 page)

At three o’clock in the afternoon, we were at Tiny’s. I’d called J.D. as soon as I walked out of the courthouse. She answered, “Well?”

“Not guilty.”

“That’s my man. I’m so proud of you, Matt. And happy for Abby and Bill.”

“Thanks, sweetie. We’re on our way to Tiny’s to celebrate.”

“I’ll see you there.”

By the time we arrived, a crowd was gathering. Word travels fast on a small island. I’d called Robin Hartill at the newspaper as soon as I hung up from talking to J.D. She put the story, including the attempted intimidation of Judge Thomas, on the Internet edition of the paper and joined us at Tiny’s. Logan and Jock dragged in from the golf course. J.D. had called Gus Grantham and he was on his way. Off-duty Longboat cops were filing in to congratulate Bill and Abby. It was a gathering of the islanders, a collective sigh of the relief that one of them would not be going to prison. I got a lot of hugs and handshakes and jokes about the devout beach bum losing his status and being dragged back into the real world, all of which I denied.

The party went on into the evening. I could feel the tension leaving my body, the beach bum replacing the lawyer. Jock and Logan declined to go to lunch with us the next day and suggested that J.D. and I spend the day alone on the beach at Egmont Key. That sounded better and better. It would be a day to reclaim my rightful place among the indolent. I was looking forward to it.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Somehow, August slipped up on me. The weeks since the trial had been an easy time of good fishing and good friends. J.D. and I settled back into our routines, jogging the beach at dawn, stopping in the key’s bars and restaurants for a drink with friends in the evenings. We spent a lot of time on
Recess
on J.D.’s days off, sometimes doing nothing but floating around, unanchored and unconcerned about the world. Bill and Abby Lester had gone to the mountains of North Carolina for a well-deserved rest. They came back refreshed and happy to see their lives return to normal.

The key was mostly empty, probably no more than a couple of thousand year-rounders enjoying the quiet of the summer. Word from the broader world occasionally seeped onto the key, interrupting our isolation and bringing news of the fate of the characters who had so consumed my waking moments and haunted my dreams during the months leading up to Abby’s trial. Mark Erickson had pleaded guilty to a number of drug charges and murder. He would spend the rest of his life in prison. There was no evidence that his wife Julie had been involved in the drug business or that she even had any knowledge of her husband’s activities. She would retain her professorship at USF. On the day of her husband’s sentencing, Julie filed for divorce.

Jim Favereaux had disappeared. Homeland Security Agent Devlin Michel assured J.D. that he was in the custody of the appropriate federal authorities and would be dealt with accordingly. Jock explained to us that there were secret courts that dealt with rogue agents. A public trial would give away too many secrets. When the agents were sworn in, they signed documents giving up certain rights, including the right to a public trial if charged with a crime growing out of their activities as federal agents. If the agent was sentenced to prison, it was to a Supermax, the highest-security prison in the system. He was given a new name and a cover story that turned him into a common criminal with an extensive history of violence. I was pretty sure that was Jim Favereaux’s fate.

Kent Walker, the man who accosted me in the Euphemia Haye parking lot, was in jail awaiting trial on assault charges. His use of a gun and the fact that he was trying to intimidate a lawyer in the middle of a capital murder trial, caused the committing judge to set a high bond. Walker wouldn’t be going anywhere except state prison.

The governor’s chief of staff, Fulton Hancock, had been arrested in Tallahassee in the early hours of the morning after Erickson’s confession. Hancock was free on a large bond. He’d resigned his position with the governor, but the flurry of news reports on Hancock’s transgressions had tarred the governor, despite his vociferous denial of any knowledge of his aide’s criminal activities.

Detective Brad Corbin was in the Orleans Parish jail awaiting transport to a state prison. He’d spilled his guts when confronted by Homeland Security agents. It seems that there had been talk of a trip to Guantánamo, domestic terrorism, death penalties and other such nonsense. Corbin caved and confessed, and he would spend the rest of his life as a guest of the Louisiana prison system.

Judge Wayne Lee Thomas filed a grievance against George Swann accusing him of suborning perjury and making a deal with an accused Stephanie Bramlett, which he had no authority to make. The case was pending before a Florida Bar Grievance Committee in Sarasota, and things did not look good for Swann. I had not been called to testify before the committee, but I would do so if asked.

I spent a couple of weeks after the trial trying to decide whether I should approach Bill Lester about his affair with Maggie Bannister. It was really none of my business, and now that I knew who had murdered Nate Bannister, and Abby had been acquitted, the only reason I could see for my pursuing the issue was my curiosity. In mid-July, the island gossip network lit up with the word that Trip Grower, a Longboat Key police captain, and Maggie Bannister were engaged and would be tying the knot in the fall.

J.D. was as surprised as everyone else on the island, but it sent her into a frenzy of investigatory zeal. She knew that the chief and Grower had been friends since their days in the police academy, and she couldn’t imagine that Bill Lester would cheat on his wife and his best friend at the same time. She’d never accepted that Lester would have had an affair in the first place.

J.D. had to be careful as she looked into the case. She couldn’t compromise Cracker Dix, who had told us about the affair in the first place, nor could she smear Bill Lester by innuendo. After a week of digging, she came up with the answer. As one of the ranking officers in the department, Captain Grower was subject to call at any time, day or night, and was therefore entitled to the use of an unmarked cruiser twenty-four hours a day. Grower’s car had reached the end of its service life in February and his new car was late arriving. Since Bill Lester lived on the key, and he was deskbound most of the day, he could do without his department car for a couple of weeks. He’d lent it to Grower until the new car was delivered. It was during that period of time that Cracker thought he’d seen the chief arrive at Maggie’s house. Given that Grower and the chief were about the same size, it would have been an easy mistake for Cracker to make. The man he thought was the chief was actually Trip Grower.

We never did figure out why Maggie Bannister had lied about her presence in her husband’s condo in the weeks before his death. Her fingerprints were found in various places around the living room, but she had denied being there. J.D. suggested that it was probably an innocent visit, but that for some reason she didn’t want anyone to know about it. She might have been concerned that her boyfriend Trip would have access to the information, and would be upset to know that she had visited her almost ex-husband. Maybe Maggie thought her best defense was a denial. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t important, so neither J.D. nor I ever mentioned the discrepancy to anyone. That old adage about letting sleeping dogs lie was often good advice.

Then, one day when I wasn’t expecting it, the dog days of August fell on us like a hot blanket. The sun was intense and the days were cooled only by our afternoon thunderstorms that brought even more humidity to smother the island. It was a time to spend indoors or in a swimming pool or the Gulf waters.

It was on such a day that J.D. called me. I had been to lunch with Logan at Mar Vista, sitting at the air-conditioned bar and munching on a fish sandwich. A few hardy souls took their meals at the tables under the trees adjacent to the bay. I’d walked the two blocks home and was washing the sweat off under a cold shower when the phone rang.

“Big news,” said J.D. “I’m on my way downtown to help Harry Robson interrogate Tori Madison.”

“They got her?”

“Yes. She was arrested in Orlando last night. The Sarasota County sheriff sent somebody to pick her up. She should be at the jail in about ten minutes.”

“How did they find her?”

“Stupid luck. She was working in a topless bar and got into a cat fight with one of the other dancers.”

“She wasn’t bartending?”

“Nope. Dancing. I guess she didn’t have much money in her getaway stash. The story the Orlando police got from the manager of the bar was that she applied for a job as bartender, but local law required that she had to be fingerprinted and run though the local police. Not surprisingly, she refused to do that, so they offered her a job as a dancer.”

“So, what happened?”

“Apparently, the fight was loud and rough. An off-duty police officer who was working security at the club tried to break it up and got punched in the mouth for his trouble. He pulled out a Taser and quieted the girls down. When they stopped twitching, he arrested them. When they printed our buddy Tori, up popped the murder warrant from Sarasota County.”

“Will she talk?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we can cut a deal. Lesser charge in return for less time in prison.”

“There’s nothing she can add to the Bannister case. Abby was acquitted, and we know from Lucas’ confession that he was the murderer. But I would sure like to know why she went after Abby.”

“Me too. I’ll call you when we finish.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Tori Madison was shackled by one arm to a U-bolt in the concrete floor of the interrogation room in the Sarasota County jail. A small table separated her from Harry Robson and J.D. Duncan. Tori had dyed her hair dark brown and wore it short. Her face was as still as a mask of stone. Only her eyes were animated, darting about like a cornered animal seeking escape. “I want a lawyer,” she said.

“There are a number of ways this can go, Tori,” J.D. said. “One, we charge you with first-degree murder. Two, we turn you over the Homeland Security, and they arrange for a little Caribbean vacation for you at a delightful place called Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Three, you talk to us, and we’ll get you a better deal than a ride on the needle up at the death chamber.”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” Tori said.

“It doesn’t matter,” J.D. said. “In the eyes of the law, you’re guilty. You conspired to have Nate Bannister killed, and that makes you just as guilty as Wes Lucas. It’s first-degree murder, Tori, premeditated murder. The fact that you tried to pin it on somebody else is just going to make the jury angry. Anger turns ordinary juries into hanging juries. You want to take a chance on that?”

“What kind of deal?”

Harry spoke up. “We’ll take the first-degree murder charge off the table. We’ll charge you with conspiracy. You confess to your part in the scheme and plead guilty to conspiracy. No lawyers. The deal is only good right now. Take it or leave it.”

“I want to think about it.”

“You’ve got ten minutes,” Harry said. “We’ll leave you to it.” He and J.D. got up to leave the room.

“Wait,” Tori said. “How much time will I have to do?”

“That’ll be up to the prosecutor and the judge,” Harry said. “But the death penalty won’t be a factor if you plead.”

“Let me think about it.”

The detectives watched Tori through a one-way mirror. She didn’t move during the ten minutes, and when J.D. and Harry returned to the room, she nodded. “Tell me the deal.”

“We’ll drop all murder charges,” Harry said. “You’ll give us a complete statement and agree to plead guilty to a lesser charge. You’ll leave the length of the prison sentence in the hands of the judge, no deal on that, but the death sentence will be off the table. If you lie to us, the deal is off and all your statements can be used in your trial for the murder of Nate Bannister and Linda Favereaux.”

“Okay,” Tori said, “what do you want to know?”

“What made you decide to participate in the murder of Nate Bannister?” Harry asked.

“Mark Erickson ordered me to. He said Nate was trying to back out of an agreement that meant a lot of money to him. He agreed to give me a piece of his deal if I’d help him get rid of Nate.”

“What was your job?”

“I was supposed to frame somebody for the murder. Mark didn’t want it to look like a hit. He didn’t think anybody thought Nate was involved in the drug business, and it was to Mark’s advantage that it stayed that way. He wanted the murder to appear to be a lover’s quarrel or revenge or something like that.”

“So, you picked Robert Shorter as the patsy,” J.D. said.

“Sure. He and Nate had a history. Shorter was a perfect scapegoat. He was going to meet Nate and me at Nate’s condo on Sunday evening. A shooter would come in and kill Nate and when Shorter got there, the shooter would kill him and make it look like suicide.”

“Lucas was the shooter?” J.D. asked.

“No. Erickson had somebody from Miami lined up for that job. He was trying to keep it separate from our people in this area.”

“Then how did Lucas get involved in shooting Bannister?”

“The guy from Miami got held up in some way. He couldn’t get here on Sunday, so Erickson called Lucas in to do the job.”

“Why did you decide against the murder-suicide plan?” J.D. asked.

“It was a good plan, but Shorter called me on Sunday and refused to come to the condo that night. Erickson had a deadline he had to meet, so we had to do Nate that night. That’s when Erickson called Lucas in and we went to our backup plan.”

“How did Abby Lester get involved?” J.D. asked.

“She was my backup plan. After I met with Shorter, I was afraid he would back out or just not show up. He was flaky as hell, and I didn’t think I could trust him.”

“How did you get the glass with Abby’s fingerprints?” J.D. asked.

“I called her and set up a meeting on Saturday before the murder. We had a glass of wine and talked about her helping me with a historical motif for the buildings in Lakeland. When we finished, I slipped her wine glass into my purse and took it with me.