The Alligator Man (15 page)

J
eanette was in his face before the judge was out of the room. “Why’d you tell the judge you didn’t have all the discovery?”

“Because I don’t.”

“I personally handed it to you.”

“And I personally talked to the manager of the Verona Inn, who told me that the police interviewed a chambermaid there last week. I don’t have that interview. Who knows what else I don’t have?”

“I didn’t know about that interview.”

“Well, I suggest that in the future you ask before you get in my face making accusations.”

He turned away from her toward Billy, who thankfully had not yet been removed by the guards. “This is just the beginning. I want you to keep your spirits up. Tom and I will be working on this night and day.”

Billy just nodded. He had told himself he was ready but he really wasn’t. The reality that he might never see his kids again was beginning to take hold. He stood to leave but Kevin stopped him.

“Give us a minute,” he said to the guards who were waiting to transport Billy back to the jail. “Billy, you asked me before if I wanted to know what happened and I put you off. Now I want you to tell me.”

Billy turned and looked at the guards. “Here?” he asked.

“What better place? The guards can’t hear us. Do you want to do it in your cell?”

“Hell, no.”

“Well?”

“You’re sure, Kev?”

“I’m sure, Billy. If we’re going to get you out of here, I’ve got to know the truth.”

“Okay. Here goes. I went down there to kill him. I felt I owed it to Laurie and to my friend Jimmy Lennox and everybody else that son of a bitch screwed. I went over there from Verona three nights in a row before that night, but I couldn’t get it done. Every night I got a little more drunk, working up my courage.”

Kevin could see Billy, all of a sudden, get that faraway look in his eyes like he was reliving the event.

“He went into his backyard every night. I saw him there, sitting in his chair, drinking his wine. The prick. I was going to shoot him right there. That fourth night I was really drunk. I can’t believe I made it all the way to Gladestown and back. I mean, I was all over the road. I recall looking in the backyard that night and not seeing Roy and getting in the car and driving back to the hotel. I couldn’t tell you one thing about the ride there or back, though.”

“Could you have hit Roy Johnson on Gladestown Road and not remembered it?”

“It’s possible. As you can imagine, I’ve thought about this a lot lately. I think I would remember, but as I said, I couldn’t tell you one thing about the ride from Verona and back. So it’s possible.”

“Anything else?

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Thanks, Billy.”

K
evin called his father on the drive back to St. Albans and told him what happened at the hearing.

“The state attorney who is handling this case knows you.”

“Really? What’s his name?”

“It’s a she. Her name’s Jeanette Truluc. Her father’s a professor at FSU.”

“Oh yeah, Professor Jean Truluc. I gave a few talks to his class years ago. Nice man. Good teacher, from what I observed. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.”

“Why don’t you come out to the ranch tomorrow for lunch?” Tom asked. “We can spend the afternoon hashing everything out.”

“What time?”

“Noon is good.”

“I’ll be there.”

Kate’s ranch was thirty miles outside of town but it may as well have been a hundred. It seemed as though civilization ended ten miles outside of the city limits, replaced by thick pine forests and open meadows, and from time to time, cattle and horses could be seen in the distance.

The specific directions Kate had given him led him down a long narrow dirt path that opened into one of those deep, wide, luscious green meadows. There, in the middle, nestled between two giant oaks, stood an unimposing, old two-story farmhouse with a tin roof that sloped down like a ski jump and a wraparound porch that encircled the entire structure. Kevin noticed a barn behind the house, a corral, and a herd of cattle far down the meadow. When he parked in the driveway, Kate was at the front door waiting for him.

“Did you have any trouble finding us?” she asked.

“Nope. The directions were great. How’s Tom doing?”

“Come on in and see for yourself.”

She led him through a cozy little parlor and into the living room where Tom was sitting on the couch. He looked like he had gained a few pounds and his face had some color from the sun.

“Afternoon,” he said while attempting to get up.

Kevin could see the pain on his face. “Stay there,” he said.

“I’ve got to get up anyway. We need to work at the kitchen table where we can spread everything out.” Apparently Tom liked to work the same way his son did. After Kevin helped him to his feet, Tom walked on his own to the dining room table. There were some papers piled up already.

“Let me get my things in order while Kate shows you around,” Tom told his son as he struggled to sit in the dining room chair.

“He’s fine,” Kate whispered in Kevin’s ear. “He’s been so excited all morning waiting for you to get here. This is the best therapy in the world for him. Come on, let me give you a quick tour.”

There were three bedrooms on the first floor, one large and two small. The living room was the center of the house. Kevin was particularly taken with a painting over the couch where Tom had been sitting. It was of an Indian in full war dress mounted on a spotted pony at the edge of a ridge looking out over a valley. The colors were rich and the detail was incredible.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Tom yelled from the dining room. “It’s my favorite.”

Kevin looked around after hearing his father’s words and noticed that there were several original paintings of the West in general and Indians in particular spread around the first floor of the house.

Kate did not seem interested in showing him the upstairs.

“Just more bedrooms?” he asked.

“Not really,” she replied.

“Now you’ve raised my curiosity. I’ve got to see what’s up there.”

Kate led him up the stairs, which opened into one large room. There were a handful of easels there, mostly situated by the windows, and several canvases with scenes in various stages of completion. One was a portrait of an Indian chief.

“Those are your paintings downstairs!”

Kate smiled. She was a pretty woman, and for the first time, maybe because it was the first time he looked closely, Kevin saw a trace of her lineage.

“I grew up out West,” Kate told him. “And it has never left me. I’m part Ute Indian on my mother’s side, so I love to paint Native Americans and their way of life.”

“Is that how you’ve supported yourself?”

“For the last thirty years.”

“So you saw the studio?” Tom asked, beaming when they came downstairs. “She doesn’t show it to too many people.”

“I kind of forced the issue.”

“Nonsense,” Kate replied. “I wanted you to see it. Now, what would you like for lunch? I have homemade vegetable soup, ham, turkey, and roast beef.”

“I’ll help you,” Kevin offered.

“No. You and your father have work to do.”

Kevin graciously accepted her hospitality. “Then I’ll have your homemade soup with a turkey sandwich.”

He sat down across from his dad. “So what information have you uncovered that you wanted to share with me?” he asked Tom.

“We can get to that. Tell me a little more about the hearing and your trip to Gladestown.”

Kevin went back over the hearing in greater detail and then told Tom about his day on the water with Carlisle Buchanan.

“Carlisle is a walking Everglades encyclopedia. He will be very valuable to us if we come up with an alternative theory as to how this murder occurred.”

“That’s what I’ve been working on,” Tom said. “And I think I’ve found the evidence we need.”

“Really?”

“Really. Did you know that in 1982, fifty percent of the male population in Gladestown was arrested for drug smuggling?”

“As a matter of fact I did,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know the percentages but Carlisle told me the story. He told me Roy Johnson was the ringleader.”

“Carlisle gave you that information? Have you hired him yet? Because he’s the guy you need.”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. Anything else that you found?”

“Roy left a month before the drug bust, but his two lieutenants, Bobby Joe Sellers and Randy Winters, got twenty-year prison terms. It’s those draconian federal laws. They never would have gotten that amount of time in state court.”

“I knew about those two.”

“Did you know who represented them?” Tom asked.

“No. Who?”

“Your favorite drug dealer defense lawyer.”

“Bernie?”

“The one and only,” Tom continued. “There’s more. Randy Winters got out of prison on April fourth of this year, six days before Roy Johnson’s disappearance.”

“Interesting. What about Sellers?”

“He got out two years ago.”

Kate brought the sandwiches and the soup from the kitchen, and they took a break to eat. Kate sat with them.

“Why don’t you stay over tonight, Kevin?” Kate offered. “I could saddle some horses after dinner and show you the property.”

Kevin looked at his dad, who smiled. “It’s the only way to see a ranch.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’d love to.”

After lunch they were back at it.

“So do you have a theory attached to all these facts, Dad, or is this just an interesting story?”

“I do. From the newspaper reports I read, it was speculated that the government had an informant. If Roy Johnson was the informant—and I think we can make an argument that he was and maybe even prove it—then Randy Winters had a motive to kill him when he got out of prison.”

“It makes sense in a vacuum,” Kevin replied.

“What does that mean?”

“It means it makes sense if we didn’t know that Bobby Joe Sellers, for instance, got out two years before. They both would have had the same information and motive, so why didn’t Bobby Joe Sellers kill him? And what about the gray car and Billy being in Verona for a week? How do you explain that away?”

“I know, I know,” Tom replied. “There are holes in our theory. But at least we have a working theory. You’re never going to explain away Billy being in Verona. You just have to put holes in their case and offer your own story.”

“What about the reality? Billy was there. I talked to him. He told me he went down there to kill Johnson, but he doesn’t think he did. Unfortunately, he was so drunk that he doesn’t know for sure.”

“I don’t know how to answer that. Is it possible that Billy was there and Roy Johnson was killed by someone else? That’s an awful big coincidence. Based on everything we know, I don’t think you can resolve all the facts and come up with a cohesive theory that explains everything unless there is a big picture that we’re not seeing. Why did you decide to talk to Billy anyway?”

“Because Carlisle told me he wouldn’t help unless Billy said he was innocent and I believed him. I wanted to know anyway.”

“Good for you,” Tom said. “You know what else makes sense?”

“What’s that, Dad?”

“Roy Johnson as the head of a drug ring and then the CEO of a major corporation. Think about it. It’s all about the money for most of those greedy bastards.”

Kevin didn’t want to get into that conversation. He knew there were a lot of honest men in business, but the number did seem to be shrinking.

“I guess you’re right, Dad,” he said and let the subject drop.

They took a break after that to let everything sink in. Kevin knew they would have more conversations before he left. He could not put into words the feeling that he had sitting at that table and bouncing ideas back and forth with his father.

Enjoy the moment,
he kept telling himself.
Don’t go backward.

T
hey had beef stew for supper. Kevin wasn’t used to home cooking and he devoured every morsel and went back for seconds. While he was eating dessert, Kate went out to the barn and saddled the horses.

They rode out to the end of the pasture to where the cattle were and then over to another pasture where some horses were grazing. After a half hour or so, they came upon a pond and stopped to let the horses drink.

“We should start back soon,” Kate said. “You don’t want to be riding too much on your first day in the saddle. The fanny gets pretty tender.”

“It’s beautiful out here,” Kevin told her. It was dusk. They were sitting on their horses by the pond, surrounded by tall pines. It was totally silent except for the gobbling of a wild turkey as it ran across the fields about twenty yards in front of them.

“This is my refuge,” she told him. “This is where I can be me. The lake house was always that place for your father. I hope he can be happy here.”

“He looks happy.”

“Oh, he is right now. More than you can ever know. Having you here has lifted his spirits tremendously. I know you have to go back soon to your home and the woman in your life, but you should know you brought great joy to your father by being here.”

Kevin did not share his thoughts and feelings with too many people and he probably wouldn’t have with Kate if he had spent any time thinking about the situation. But they were sitting there in this pristine spot and Kate had raised the subject of his relationship.

“I don’t have a home to go back to, or a woman—just a condo.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I was away less than two weeks when she told me it was over.”

“Maybe it wasn’t about the length of time you were gone. Maybe it was about other things.”

“I think you’re right. She said things hadn’t been going well for a long time. I hadn’t noticed it before she said it.”

“Most men never do. Do you see it now?”

“I guess. I think we had different values. We were heading in different directions.”

“Then maybe it’s a good thing. Time will tell. You’ll know it for sure when you meet somebody else.”

They turned the horses around and headed for home. As they rode along, Kevin could not help but think that Kate had just shared with him how she and his father came to be together. And she did it in a way that he would totally understand.