Chasing Justice: A Matt Royal Mystery (6 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Bert Hawkins called J.D. at eleven. “This is very strange, J.D. Mrs. Favereaux’s prints are not in any database.”

“Wait a minute. Did your office somehow screw up with the first set of prints you ran?”

“No. I took a good look at the first set of prints we took. When I sent them the second time and got the negative response, I printed her again and compared that set to the first set we’d taken. They’re identical.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s in the witness protection program. Maybe there’s supposed to be a stop of some kind on her prints so that it would appear that there are no prints in the system.”

“Then how did we get them the first time?” J.D. asked.

“Who knows? Maybe some kind of slip-up in the system.”

“Thanks, Bert. You’ve confused the situation even more.”

“Sorry. I’m just a seeker of truth.”

J.D. laughed, hung up and sat back to think. Maybe the lack of a response to the second request for the fingerprints was the slip-up. Maybe the system just burped on the second request. She thought about sending the request again, but decided to wait.

She turned to the facts she knew, or surmised, about Linda Favereaux. By the time Favereaux married Darlene—if that was her real name—he would have been a very successful man. Maybe he wanted a trophy wife, or maybe he was in love with her despite the difference in ages. Maybe Darlene wanted to leave a bad life behind, and she completely changed her identity. It might all be innocent, but J.D. didn’t think so.

She looked up the New Orleans Police Department on her computer and called the records department. “This is Detective J.D. Duncan in Longboat Key, Florida. I’m hoping you can help me with some old arrest records.”

“What do you need?”

“Twenty years ago your department arrested a woman named Darlene Pelletier on a shoplifting charge. She was murdered here on Longboat Key yesterday. She had been living here under a fictitious name. I’m trying to do some background as part of my investigation.”

“That’d be a misdemeanor charge. I doubt we’d have anything on it. Even if we kept the file, we lost a lot of records during Hurricane Katrina.”

“Would you check on it for me?”

“Sure. How do I get in touch with you?”

J.D. thanked him and left the police station’s phone number and her extension.

Her phone rang a few minutes later. A gruff voice on the other end of the line, said, “This is Special Agent Devlin Michel of the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

“What can I do for you, Agent Michel?”

“You can tell me why you’re looking for Darlene Pelletier.”

J.D. was taken aback, and she didn’t like Michel’s tone of voice. “What interest would that be to you?”

“That’s really none of your business. Why are you looking for Darlene Pelletier?”

“That’s really none of your business, Agent Michel.” She hung up, shaking her head at the lack of manners some people displayed.

The phone rang again. “This is Devlin Michel. I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“You certainly did.”

“I apologize, Detective. Your inquiry on the prints rang some very large bells in Washington.”

“My inquiry?”

“The one from the Sarasota County medical examiner. Your name was on it as an interested party.”

“Why are the bells in Washington ringing?”

“I can’t disclose that, but I will tell you we’ve been looking for her. For a long time.”

“You can stop looking for her. She’s dead.”

“Dead? You sure?”

“A woman named Linda Favereaux was murdered on Longboat Key early yesterday. We ran her prints, and they came back as belonging to Darlene Pelletier.”

“I wonder why we didn’t see your first inquiry,” he said.

“We didn’t use her name on the request. Maybe your people are still looking at the prints and haven’t yet connected them to Ms. Pelletier.”

“Could be. You’ll probably have a local DEA agent coming by to verify that Pelletier’s dead.”

“I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”

“I’ll help if I can. Shoot.”

“Once you satisfy yourself that she’s really dead, will you be able to tell me why you had her on a watch list?”

“I don’t know. That’s above my pay grade.”

“Can you tell me if she’s connected to anyone else? That might help lead me to her killer.”

“Again, I don’t know if we can give you that information.”

“Does the name James Favereaux mean anything to you?”

“Not to me.”

“How about to your agency?”

“I just don’t know, Detective. I’ll run all this up the chain of command and see if anyone will talk to you.”

“I guess that’s all I can ask for, Agent Michel. Thank you.”

J.D. sat for a few minutes and picked up the phone again. She called Sammy Lastinger, the repository of most of the island gossip. He had been the bartender at Pattigeorge’s, a popular restaurant on the island for many years. He had recently moved to the Haye Loft, an upscale bar on the second floor of a world-class restaurant called Euphemia Haye. He and Eric Bell, the bartender there, formed a team that the islanders were already calling the dynamic duo. Nothing that happened on the island would get by those two.

“Sammy,” J.D. asked, “do you know James Favereaux and his wife Linda?”

“Do they drink and live on the island?”

“Presumably so.”

“Then assume I know them. I heard Linda was murdered.”

“She was. And her husband is missing in action. What can you tell me about them?”

“Not much. They’d come in sometimes, usually have a drink or two and leave. They weren’t very talkative.”

“Did they ever come in with anybody?”

“Not usually, but I did see them with Mike and Lyn Haycock one evening a couple of weeks ago. The four of them came into the bar for a drink. I think they’d had dinner downstairs.”

“Thanks, Sammy. See you soon.”

She was getting nowhere. The Haycocks were her friends, and she’d stop by and see them when Mike got home from work. Maybe they could shed some light on the Favereauxes.

She pulled the murder file out of her drawer and went through it again. She concentrated on the crime scene photos, pulling each of the eight-by-ten color prints out one at a time and staring at it, hoping to see something she’d missed. She was about halfway through the stack, and was looking closely at a photo of the body, when she noticed what appeared to be a small tattoo high on the underside of the victim’s right arm. It was hard to tell for sure.

The body was facedown and the arm was lying on the floor at an odd angle, palm turned up. J.D. could just see the top of the tattoo. The arm had probably flopped over when J.D. asked the techs to turn the body so that she could see the back of her head.

J.D. pulled the autopsy report out of the file. She found a description of the tattoo buried deep in a long paragraph describing the body. It was about two inches square and was described as an abstract design with squares and circles. There were no pictures attached to the report, but J.D. knew the ME would have taken some. She called Bert Hawkins’ office and asked his assistant to email her any pictures of the tattoo they had. They arrived ten minutes later.

The tattoo was simple. It was a square within a square with small circles within the squares. What was that all about? J.D. emailed it to the department geek and asked him to search all the tattoo databases to see if he could find one that matched.

CHAPTER TEN

The video conference room was small, so the deputies had arranged for the press to use a bigger room down the hall. The video hearing would be transmitted to a large flat screen TV for the reporters and to the TV trucks parked on the street out front. We’d be live on TV screens all over the country. Nothing like a juicy murder story to send the media into a feeding frenzy. This one had all the elements: a resort town, a wealthy developer murdered, a sordid affair, and the wife of a local chief of police charged. Who could resist?

The video conference room had two tables positioned on either side of the room; one for the prosecution and the other for the defense. A flat screen hung from brackets in the ceiling at the front of the room. Two cameras were positioned so that one was trained on each table. A technician sat at a small console in a corner of the room. He would manipulate the feed from the cameras so that the person talking would be the one the judge saw on his screen. In this instance, he would also be getting a feed from the prosecutor’s office in Jacksonville and the judge’s chambers in Tampa. He told me he would use a split-screen effect so that I could see both the judge and Mr. Swann at the same time. A court reporter sat next to the technician, her steno machine in front of her.

I had settled into one of the counsel tables and was waiting for the deputies to bring in Abby. I was surprised to see Agent Lucas walk into the room along with a man in his late thirties. Both were wearing suits and the man with Lucas was carrying a briefcase. Lucas saw me and whispered to the other man who came to my table, offering his hand.

“Mr. Royal, I’m George Swann. I’ll be prosecuting this case.”

I stood and introduced myself and shook his hand. “I wasn’t expecting you here in person. I thought you’d be on TV.”

“I thought so too, until I got your motion for bail. I chartered a plane and here I am.”

“Welcome to paradise,” I said. “I hope we’ll be able to get through this mess on a professional basis.”

Swann smiled. “I’m sure of it. I’ll be going to a grand jury as soon as we can get one empaneled. You’ll have to get a death case-certified lawyer to take over.”

Uh, oh, I thought. Looks like we’re going to be comparing genitalia size here. “I’m certified, Mr. Swann. I think I’ll be able to muddle through.”

He looked surprised, but the smile, or maybe the smirk, was still on his face. “I heard you were retired, living on an island, working as a beach bum.”

“You heard right.”

“And you’re going to try a murder case?”

“Yep. I heard you’ve tried a few and got some verdicts.”

“I’m twenty-two zip on murder cases. Never lost one.”

Just what I needed. An arrogant prick. I smiled now, a genuine, you’re-my-best-buddy kind of smile. “Maybe you ought to dismiss this case,” I said. “You’ll be able to preserve your sterling record.”

He laughed. “I’ve never tried a case against a beach bum. We’ll see.” He walked back to his desk.

The door in the back of the room opened and a corrections deputy escorted Abby into the room. She was still wearing the jumpsuit and her wrists were cuffed in front of her. She sat at the table and gave me a tired smile. I leaned over and whispered, “Hang tough, Abby.”

“I’ve got the judge up,” the technician said, and the big screen came to life with the image of the Honorable Wayne Lee Thomas. I’d known Judge Thomas for a number of years, tried a few cases before him back in that other life I’d traded for the beach. He was a good man, a judge who was a stickler for the rules and courtroom decorum, who loved the law, understood it, and brooked no nonsense from those lawyers who would abuse it. He was fearless in his rulings and always fair. In short, he was the perfect judge for this case.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the judge said. “Please identify yourselves for the record.”

Swann stood and identified himself. I followed suit, and the judge said, “I take it, Mr. Royal, that this retirement isn’t working out too well for you.”

“I just help out a friend now and then, Your Honor.”

The judge chuckled. “Are we ready to proceed?”

“Yes, sir,” Swann and I said in unison.

“If the defendant will stand, I’ll read the charges,” the judge said.

I stood. “Your Honor, we’ll waive the reading of the charges. My client pleads not guilty. I filed a motion for bail that I’d like heard this afternoon.”

“Okay, Mr. Royal. Mr. Prosecutor, did you get a copy of defendant’s motion for bail?”

“I did, Your Honor. Of course, we object.”

“What’s the basis of your objection?”

“The defendant is charged with second-degree murder, and I think that will be increased to first degree as soon as we get to a grand jury. Because a gun was used in the murder, the defendant would be subject to a sentence of life in prison even if she were only convicted of second degree. The rules provide that there’s no bail under those circumstances.”

“I’m familiar with the rules, Counselor. And there’s an exception. There’s always an exception. What is your evidence of a high probability of conviction?”

“The Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent who is leading the investigation is here to testify, Your Honor. Agent Lucas.”

“Okay. Agent Lucas, we don’t have a witness stand in this room, so you can stay where you are. Please stand so that I can swear you in.”

When Lucas was duly sworn, the judge said, “Your witness, Mr. Swann.”

Swann stood and looked at Lucas. “State your name for the record.”

“Wesley Lucas.”

“Your occupation?”

“I’m an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

“What is your job in relation to the case we’re here on?”

“I’m the lead investigator.”

“Have you reviewed the evidence that led to the arrest of the defendant, Abigail Lester?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you order her arrest?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Based on what?”

“The evidence at the scene points to her guilt.”

“What evidence did you find?”

“Her fingerprints were in the victim’s condo.”

“Where did you find the fingerprints?”

“On a wine glass on a bedside table in Mr. Bannister’s bedroom.”

“Anything else?”

“There were emails from the defendant to the victim on the victim’s computer.”

“How many?”

“About ten.”

“Over what period of time?”

“The week leading up to the murder.”

“Have you read those emails?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was there anything in them that led you to believe the defendant was more than just an acquaintance of the victim?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please tell the court what that was.”