Chasing Justice: A Matt Royal Mystery (8 page)

“That could be,” Lyn said, “but it seemed a little more than that.”

“Have you heard anything about Linda having an affair?” J.D. asked.

Mike laughed. “That didn’t exactly come up at dinner.”

J.D. smiled, “I guess not.”

“But, that might explain my feelings about them,” Lyn said. “Like maybe their relationship was a bit strained.”

The Haycocks had nothing else to add. The conversation moved on to mutual friends, Sammy’s new job, and his most recent girlfriend, the latest in a long line of beautiful women.

CHAPTER TWELVE

J.D. and I were having a quiet dinner on the sunporch of her condo overlooking Sarasota Bay. It was nearing eight o’clock and we were both tired. The sun was setting over the Gulf, its dying rays reflecting off the low-lying clouds to the east, painting the still waters with a patina of liquid gold.

We had gone over my day, and she was telling me about hers. I was fascinated by this wondrous creature who loved me. She was tall, about five-seven, and her daily workouts kept her slender and shapely. Her dark shoulder-length hair framed a face that in another time would have graced a Grecian urn. Her green eyes twinkled with good humor, and when occasion demanded, flashed with anger. Her smile was a high-wattage killer, her laugh big and contagious.

My cell phone rang. I answered. “This is Matt Royal.”

“This is Matt Walsh.”

“Hello, Matt.”

“Hello, Matt.”

It was our shtick, a silly greeting between old friends. He often reminded me that he was older than I, and thus had seniority in the use of the name. Matt Walsh was an old-school journalist and the publisher of one of our local weekly newspapers, the
Longboat Observer
. “I’ve just had a troubling telephone conversation with Stan Strickland, the agent in charge of the Tampa FDLE office,” he said.

“Troubling how?”

“One of my reporters called him earlier today about the Abby Lester case. He wouldn’t talk to her because he would be breaking all kinds of rules if it got out that he was giving a reporter any information. So he called me.”

“Why call you?” I asked.

“He’s an old acquaintance. We met several years ago through Kiwanis, and we run into each other occasionally. He said there was some funny stuff going on with this case, and he’s tired of the pressure he gets from people in high places. That, and the fact that he trusts me to keep my mouth shut on what he called deep background.”

“And you’re calling me?”

“I told him that you and the Lesters were friends of mine, and if what he had to tell me would have an impact on Abby’s case, I would want to be able to discuss it with the three of you. He wouldn’t agree to let me talk to the Lesters, but he said I could pass it on to you. He said he’d be protected by the attorney-client privilege, and you couldn’t talk about what he had to say.”

“Actually, the work-product privilege would protect the information, but it serves the same purpose. I can keep it all confidential. What did he have to say?”

“He’s not happy with the agent investigating Abby’s case.”

“Wes Lucas,” I said.

“That’s the one. Apparently, there’s some bad blood between Strickland and Lucas.”

“Then why assign Lucas the case?”

“Lucas told Strickland he wanted it, and Strickland felt he had to give it to him. It seems that Lucas has some highly placed friends, and what Lucas wants, Lucas gets. Strickland is sick of dealing with it, and thinks that maybe a little publicity about how Lucas barged into the Lester case might have some effect on the higher-ups who are pulling the strings.”

“Highly placed in FDLE?” I asked.

“Higher than that.”

“Did he tell you who?”

“He doesn’t know, but he’s had pressure before when he tried to discipline Lucas for stepping over the line in cases he was working.”

“Lucas said he was in Sarasota working on another matter when FDLE was called in. That’s the reason he was assigned to Bannister’s murder.”

“Strickland says that wasn’t the way it happened. Lucas called him on the morning the body was discovered and said he wanted to be the lead investigator. The thing is, Lucas called before Strickland even knew there was a murder.”

“That’s strange. I wonder if Lucas was in Sarasota and heard about the case and Abby’s possible involvement.”

“Don’t know, but Strickland said Lucas was very insistent that he get the assignment.”

“Are you going to follow up on this?” I asked.

“Maybe. But, Matt, I won’t be able to keep you informed on what we find. If I can print it, you’ll see it, but I can’t let my people become part of your investigation.”

“I understand, and I appreciate your calling me on this. Do you think it’d be okay for me to talk to Strickland?”

“I don’t see why not. He specifically gave me permission to talk to you.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

“You’re welcome, Matt.” The line went dead.

I told J.D. what Walsh had said. “Lucas must have a direct line into Sarasota PD. Somebody’s leaking him information.”

“Maybe not,” she said.

“I don’t know of any other way he could have known about the murder so soon.”

“Unless he was part of the murder and the framing of Abby in the first place.”

I hadn’t thought about that possibility. “You have a devious mind. I wonder, though. You might be onto something. I’ll look into it.”

“I’d like to know who is protecting a scumbag like Lucas,” she said.

“So would I. What were we talking about when Walsh called?”

“My murder case. I haven’t heard back from New Orleans on my record request. I don’t know if the files on Darlene Pelletier even exist, or whether everybody out there is just too lazy to look for them.”

“What are you hoping to find?”

“I don’t know. I’m just stirring the pot, hoping some bit of information will float to the top. I have nothing at this point, except that the husband has disappeared. We’ve tagged his credit cards, but there have been no hits anywhere. Late this afternoon, Tampa PD found his car in a long-term parking lot at Tampa International, but nobody named James Favereaux has taken a flight out of there since last Friday. And we know he was home on Friday afternoon when the maid left for the day.”

“Nothing else from the DEA?”

“Nothing. I thought I might get a call back from Agent Michel, but not so far. Maybe he’ll call tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. If you don’t have information to trade him, he’s got no reason to give you anything. He was looking for Darlene Pelletier, and you told him she’s dead. He’ll follow up on that to make sure your identification was good, and that’ll be the end of DEA’s involvement.”

She frowned. “I’m afraid you’re right. I’ll just have to keep digging. Where are you going with Abby’s case?”

“I’m not sure yet. I don’t think she killed Bannister, and I don’t think the state can prove she did. At least not with the evidence they have so far.”

“What about the DNA on the sheets?”

“If it’s hers, that would be a big hurdle to get over. I guess we’ll know in a few days. I need to find somebody who can tell me about those emails. I’d like to know where they came from since they weren’t sent from Abby’s computer.”

“Our department geek could probably explain that to you.”

“I don’t want to have any appearance of help from your people. That could end up biting me in the butt at trial.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’ll have to hire an expert who can testify, if need be.”

“Who do you think did kill Bannister?”

“I don’t have any idea, but I need to come up with some suspects to give the jury a plausible alternative to Abby as the murderer. That produces reasonable doubt, which means acquittal.”

“I thought you were pretty sure the state didn’t have enough evidence to convict.”

“I don’t think they do, now, but we’ve got several months to go before trial. And there’s the DNA question hanging out there.”

“Did Abby have an affair with Bannister?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked her.”

“Isn’t that important?”

“It may be, but not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Abby’s fingerprints in Bannister’s condo mean nothing in and of themselves. Except that she’s been in the house. But so have a lot of other people. If the DNA isn’t Abby’s, that shoots a hole in the prosecution’s theory that it was an affair gone bad. The emails certainly made it look like there had been an affair, but they didn’t come from Abby’s computer. So unless Swann and Lucas can tie the emails to Abby in some way, or find a witness who will testify that he or she has some knowledge of an affair, I think we’ll be in the clear. If that theory is dead, I don’t need to know about an affair. And frankly, I just don’t want to think that Abby would do something like that.”

“You need to be very careful of your objectivity, Counselor.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m counting on you to help me with that.”

“Even if someone wanted to kill Bannister, and from what I hear, there may have been a lot of them, why would they pick Abby to pin it on?”

“If I can find the answer to that, I’ll know who the killer is.” “Are you going to stay here tonight?” J.D. asked.

“No, I want to get on the computer and do a little research. I wouldn’t be good company.”

“You’re always good company.”

“Well, your expectations are minimal.”

“Hmm. You’re probably right. I do the best I can with what little I’ve got to work with.”

“Are you saying that what you have to work with isn’t a lot?”

“No, sweetie,” she said, “it’s not. But we women put up with a lot, or a little, in the name of love.”

“Wasn’t that a song?”

“Roberta Flack. ‘When you feel it, you can’t let go.’”

“Geez,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was nearing ten in the evening when I walked into my cottage. It had been a long day and I was tired. I felt my bed calling me, but I had a few things to do if I didn’t want to lie awake all night worrying about them.

I rummaged around in my desk drawer and found the external hard drive on which I kept all kinds of legal things left over from my years of law practice. I had forms for most of the pleadings I would be filing during the course of
State of Florida vs. Abigail Lester
, lots of statutes and case law, which I needed to update, and other miscellany. I might be able to muddle through without hiring a law clerk.

I would need an investigator. There were too many questions that needed to be answered, and although the state attorney was supposed to provide me with much of the information I’d need, I was afraid that George Swann would be a master at the game of hide the ball. It was unethical, of course, but, too often prosecutors forgot their charge to see that justice was done rather than the need to win at all costs.

J.D. had introduced me to a Sarasota police detective named Gus Grantham, with whom she’d worked in Miami before he moved to Sarasota PD a few years before. J.D. and I had gone to dinner with him on several occasions. He had recently retired, gotten his private investigator’s license, and opened an office in a building across from the Ringling School of Art and Design on North Tamiami Trail. I decided to give him a call the next morning.

I needed to find out more about my opponent. I Googled Swann and found several articles about him and his trials that had run over the years in the
Florida Times-Union
,
the Jacksonville newspaper. He’d been a climber, starting out in the misdemeanor division when he graduated from law school at Florida State University. He’d moved up quickly to the felony division and within a few years was trying murder cases. He’d been with the state attorney’s office for thirteen years, was thirty-nine years old, and a native of Orange Park, a suburb of Jacksonville. A few of the articles about his murder cases mentioned the names of his opposing counsel, usually a member of the public defender’s staff. I made a mental note to call a couple of them.

I did a quick survey of the case law, updating my digital library, downloading a few recent cases, and cataloging them by subject matter. They’d be close at hand if and when I needed them.

I was restless, my mind churning, gnawing at the case I’d taken on. There was so much to learn, so much to do, so much riding on the decisions I made, the strategies I relied on. I was probably closer to Abby than a lawyer should be to his client. There were so many reasons I should not handle this case, but while our system of justice was the best in the world, it wasn’t foolproof, and I had come to the conclusion, perhaps unsupported by facts, that Swann and Lucas were glory hounds who would not be above manipulating the process to score a win, no matter the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

My problem with the practice of law was that I was an idealist. I thought the law should be somehow immaculate, above the machinations of mere mortals. Yeah, I know, that’s kind of stupid, and I had not been a lawyer very long before I began to see how outrageous my expectations had been. It was a rat race and the rats were the lawyers who plied their trade in the courtrooms all over the country. Winning, not justice, was the name of the game, and I became one of the rats. Alcohol consumption made it easier to go to work every day, and I began to exist in a haze of good bourbon. I had once been a proud soldier, an officer leading a group of men who were the best fighters in the world and the most honorable people I’d ever known. Honorable men in the honorable profession of soldiering. Then I went to law school.

The terrible contradiction of the law was that it was peopled for the most part with idealists who had to lower their sights to survive in the real world of daily practice. Most of the lawyers I knew were honest, forthright, and hard working. But there were enough of the other kind that the practice lost its allure for me.

My wife Laura, the only woman I’d loved before I met J.D., worked hard at our marriage, but finally gave up in the face of my intransigence. She left me, got a divorce, and remarried. I woke up one morning a couple of years later, looked around my empty house, said the hell with it, sold everything I had, and moved to Longboat Key to start over. It was the best decision I’d made in a long time.