The Alligator Man (16 page)

T
om was asleep when they arrived back at the ranch. However, the two men were back to work the next morning at breakfast before Kevin left to return to St. Albans.

“You said something yesterday, Dad, that I’ve been thinking about. You said Bobby Joe Sellers was released from prison two years ago, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you know the date?”

“I think it was April fourth or fifth. I just remember it was almost exactly two years before Winters got out.”

“Wow!” Kevin exclaimed.

“What are you ‘wow’-ing about?” Tom asked.

“Carlisle Buchanan’s father died two years ago—April twentieth I think he said. I’m not sure of the exact day but it was in April. Rosie told me she thought he was killed.”

“Who’s Rosie?”

“She runs the local café in Gladestown.”

“Boy, you are getting to know the locals. That’s good. That’s real good.”

“Anyway, Carlisle told me his father didn’t like Roy Johnson’s operation. He thought it was going to ruin Gladestown. I’ll bet Scotch Buchanan was the informant and Bobby Joe Sellers killed him when he got out of prison.”

“You may be right, Kevin, but that kind of kills our theory, doesn’t it?”

“It might kill that theory but we can come up with another one. What would be a reason for Winters to want to kill Roy Johnson other than him being an informant?”

“Money.”

“Money works for me,” Kevin said.

“So how do we prove Winters killed Roy Johnson for money?”

“One of my former colleagues who still works for Bernie owes me a favor. I could call him and ask him to get me the criminal files on Winters and Sellers. Bernie has a history of being financially involved with his clients. I know this from my own personal experience. Maybe there’s something in those files.”

“That representation was twenty years ago. Would he even have those files?”

“Oh yeah. Bernie saves everything. He doesn’t want something or somebody to come back and haunt him years later. He has clients sign off on everything and he keeps it in his own warehouse.”

“Well, son, let’s see if we can make his little procedure bite him in the ass.”

K
evin went home to his father’s house that afternoon, showing up at the office around two. Jan was at her desk, answering phone calls and doing paperwork.

“You know, your father still gets a lot of phone calls even though he’s not taking any new cases.”

“Do you filter out the legitimate problems from the nuisance cases?” Kevin asked.

“Oh, yeah. Your father taught me how to do that years ago.”

“Well, if you think a case is legitimate, I’ll talk to the people.”

A smile lit up Jan’s face. Maybe she wasn’t going to be forced into retirement after all. “I sure will,” she said.

He waited until seven that evening to call his friend David Lefter on his cell phone.

David Lefter was one of the nine lawyers who worked for Bernie Stang. David had been a CPA before law school and was on the board of several banks and lending and investment institutions in town. A short, chubby, nervous man with irritable bowel syndrome, David didn’t possess the swagger and bravado that the trial lawyers in the office displayed—the kind of personality disorder one needed to be able to walk in any courtroom at a moment’s notice and demand to be the center of attention. He was a numbers guy and Bernie’s ticket into the world of white-collar crime, which was becoming increasingly more lucrative. David Lefter would have been hard-pressed to even
find
the courthouse.

Kevin had helped David out a couple of times when his bravado got the best of him and he took on litigation cases. One of those involved a bank president’s son accused of drug dealing. After David screwed the case up royally, he went to Kevin with his tail between his legs and Kevin bailed him out. “If you ever need anything,” David told him at the time, “you can count on me.”

David was about to get the call.

“David, this is Kevin.”

“Kevin, how are you? I’ve tried to call you a million times. What Bernie did to you was disgusting. I wanted to quit myself but I didn’t have anything else lined up. You ought to answer your cell phone once in a while, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry about that.”

“Who are you working for? Why don’t we have lunch?”

“I’m up in St. Albans where my father lives.”

“Wow, that’s drastic. I had heard Bernie didn’t want you working here in Miami. He’s such a prick.”

Kevin was done with the small talk. David was already getting on his nerves. “Listen, David, remember when I did that favor for you?”

“Remember? How could I forget?”

“And you said if I ever needed a favor.”

“That’s right. I really don’t have any extra cash but if you need anything else.”

“Turns out I do. I need you to get two old files for me out of storage. The names are Bobby Joe Sellers and Randy Winters.”

“That’s funny,” David remarked.

“What’s funny?”

“A person named Randy Winters was in to see Bernie today.”

“Really? Do you know what that was about?”

“Haven’t a clue. You know they don’t tell me anything. I’m the business guy.”

“Do you think you can get those files?” Kevin pressed.

“I don’t know. Bernie’s pretty funny about shit like that.”

Kevin knew it. David was so thankful when his ass was in a sling. Now, when the shoe was on the other foot, he was cautious. This was too important to let him off the hook.

“The hell with Bernie. I saved your ass, David, and I need a favor. Are you going to do this for me or not?”

There was a pause on the other line. “What if he goes to look for them? This guy was just in the office.”

“Copy them. Put the copies back and he’ll never know the difference.”

“Okay. I’ll see if I can pull them out.”

“Be careful.”

“I will. Say, one of your old clients has been working here.”

“Who?”

“Sal Trivigno. Bernie took over his file after you left and Sal has been working off his fee by painting the place. He comes in to see me every morning, kind of like I used to do with you.”

“Did the State ever file a criminal charge?”

“Sal told me the State never filed anything. He said it was because of you, not Bernie. He hates him as much as I do.”

K
evin tried to bring some normalcy to his life by getting into a routine. Every morning after breakfast he dressed and went over to the office and began his day. Two nights a week he went to the ranch and had dinner with his father and Kate. On Tuesday night he stayed over and went for a morning ride before heading back. He was feeling good, although Susan still weighed heavy on his mind, as did Billy.

When he was at the ranch, he and Tom talked nonstop about the case, as they did during their daily telephone calls. Tom was getting much better. His incision was healing and he was getting to the point where he could take short walks around the ranch.

“When I’m feeling a little better,” he told Kevin, “we’ll have to go out to the lake and do some fishing.”

“I’d love that.”

Kevin was fielding calls at the office and opening files and working on Tom’s two appeals. Without consciously thinking about it, he was laying down his roots.

In Billy’s case, he had sent out a subpoena for the financial records of Dynatron. He needed the records so the financial expert that he hired could testify that he or she reviewed the records, that the corporation was defunct, and that all the employees had been fired and lost their pensions and benefits. That gave twenty thousand other people the same motive as Billy to kill Roy Johnson. There might be other information in there as well that he could use to muddy the case against Billy.

Two weeks after the subpoena went out, he received a call from a lawyer named Kenneth Moss from the U.S. attorney’s office.

“Those records you subpoenaed have been seized by the federal government and we’re not going to honor your subpoena.”

Kevin had dealt with the feds before. They always sounded so arrogant like they had absolute power, which, in most cases, was true. He decided to go on a little fishing expedition with Mr. Moss.

“The corporation is defunct, the CEO is dead, and your criminal case is over. Why do you have or need the records?”

“The criminal cases aren’t over. One case was prosecuted.”

That was interesting. He needed to keep Mr. Moss talking. Of course, he couldn’t ask any direct questions. U.S. attorneys never answered direct questions.

“I don’t think you are going to get anywhere with the judge on this unless Roy Johnson was under investigation.”

“Well, he was. And so were several other people.”

So Roy Johnson was under criminal investigation at the time of his murder.
He had to keep Moss talking.

“I think we need to have an evidentiary hearing before the judge on this issue,” he told Moss.

“Fine,” Moss replied with all the arrogance he could muster. “Set it up. I’ll have an agent there to testify.”

“I’ve seen no evidence that Mr. Johnson knew he was under investigation.”

“Well, his lawyer sure knew.”

“Who was that?”

“Come on, Mr. Wylie, don’t play games with me. I’ve done my homework on you. There’s no way you wouldn’t know Bernie Stang was representing Roy Johnson.”

Kevin almost dropped the phone. Bernie was everywhere in this case.

F
ive weeks after getting out of the hospital, Tom’s incision had healed completely and he was feeling well enough to do a little fishing with his son. He and Kate drove up to the lake one Saturday morning to meet Kevin. The two men planned to go out on Tom’s little motorboat, something they hadn’t done together in almost thirty years.

Kate was happy for them but she was also worried. She hadn’t let Tom out of her sight since he came home. Even though he was looking healthier and he was smiling and laughing again, she never forgot for an instant how serious the situation was. She didn’t want something to go wrong while he was out in the middle of the lake.

Once again, Kevin had gotten his directions from Kate. The lake house, unlike the ranch, was a little hard to find.

“You turn right on Floyd Lane and go exactly one-half a mile,” she told him. “The driveway is on the left. It’s hidden and unmarked, but it’s right at the half-mile mark.”

Kevin went past it twice before he finally saw it,
exactly
at the half-mile mark. It was a long, narrow driveway that needed some tending, as the woods on both sides had almost enveloped it. After a few minutes it opened into a clearing and there stood the lake house. It was a modest, wooden structure, more like a cottage than a house. Kevin could feel his emotions stirring even though he could not specifically remember anything about the place.

The house was on a little hill and the back of it faced the lake. Kate and Tom were already there. Kate was inside straightening up. Tom was down at the dock, loading the fishing poles and tending to the little motorboat. When Kevin saw the dock, a picture came into his mind of a little boy and a dog standing out there, the dog’s black-and-white tail wagging constantly.

He went in the house to help Kate. It was clearly a man’s place. No frills at all. A couple of Kate’s paintings adorned the walls but the rest was all about fishing.

“I can see you don’t spend much time here,” Kevin said.

“I have over the years, but this is Tom’s space. I leave him to it.”

There was a question on Kevin’s mind he never intended to ask, but it just came out. “Why haven’t you and Tom married?”

“Well, he was very fearful of marriage at the start of our relationship, and I was from a different generation. I didn’t think we needed a piece of paper to hold us together. As I got older there were times when I wanted to be identified as his wife but I just put it aside. I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“How about now?”

“Now it’s too late, but I have no regrets. Tom and I have something most people don’t—a bond that’s stronger than any document.”

He went down to the dock after that. Tom had everything all set. He wore one of those silly-looking fishing hats with the hooks in them.

“Want a fishing hat?” he asked his son. “I’ve got an extra one.”

“I’ll stick with my baseball cap,” Kevin told him.

The lake was truly a Florida lake. There were only houses on the west side, so when a person looked out on the lake, one saw nothing but nature. Nature as it looked a hundred, perhaps even a thousand, years ago. Part of the lake was covered with fields of lily pads. Part was hidden under peppergrass that extended out of the water as high as four or five feet. There were corridors through the peppergrass where boats could pass. It was bordered on all sides by tall pines and in the middle were two small islands covered with cedar trees.

The morning mist had not yet lifted as the two men set out. Five minutes after they left the dock, they were gone from sight.

And Kate’s fear increased.

They rode about fifteen minutes through the peppergrass until they reached a clearing on the other side. Tom turned the motor off and let the boat just drift as they threw their lines out, hoping to catch a bass or a crappie or a striped perch. Nothing was moving. It was totally serene. A few ducks were floating along, seemingly propelled by the wind. There was a ripple on the surface from time to time, but that was it. The two men were silent for a time as well. It was the nature of fishing. Tom finally broke the silence.

“Reach in that cooler and grab me a beer, will you?”

Kevin just looked at him. “You sure you want to do that?” he asked.

“I’m dying,” Tom replied. “Do you want to deprive me of the little pleasures of life? Speaking of which…” He leaned down and reached into his tackle box and pulled out two long, thick cigars. “Care to join me?”

Kevin couldn’t help but laugh. He reached into the cooler and took out two beers. He handed his father one and accepted a cigar in return. Tom lit up, then took a sip of his beer.

“Ah, the good life. It’s not longevity, son. It’s texture. Remember that.”

Kevin smiled at the sight of his father enjoying himself on his little boat in this beautiful setting. He decided that this was the snapshot he was going to carry with him for the rest of his life. Then he lit his own cigar.

“So what do we have?” Tom finally asked.

Kevin knew exactly what he was talking about. The trial was only three weeks away.

“We’ve got the evidentiary hearing on the financial records on Monday. I still don’t know what I want to ask this FBI agent. I mean, other than the stuff about everybody losing their jobs, what else is relevant?”

“Think about it,” Tom said. “What do you want to prove from this guy? You want to establish that all the employees lost their jobs and their life savings. What was the average loss? How much did the investors lose? That gives a ton of people motive to kill Roy Johnson. Of course, who knows if the judge will let it in or not at trial.”

“What else can you think of?” Kevin asked.

“Well, you want to establish that Roy Johnson was under criminal investigation for what he did as CEO of Dynatron and get the date when that investigation started.”

“What does that do for us?”

“If they were looking at the company before he left, that feeds into our theory that he bailed out at the right time and took a ton of money. The jury could conclude that’s what he did in 1982 and maybe that gave Randy Winters a reason to kill him. It also lets them know what a snake he was. How are you going to get the 1982 stuff in, by the way?”

“I found the name of the FBI agent who headed the investigation. I’ve subpoenaed him.”

“You don’t know what he’s going to say. Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

“Not really. Roy Johnson had to be on their radar back then. That’s all I need from him. I’m going to subpoena Sellers and Winters as well.”

“How about your man Carlisle, are you keeping in touch with him?”

“No. I really don’t want to talk to him too much because at some point I’m going to have to tell him about his father.”

“So?”

“So he’s one of the main witnesses for the prosecution. Someone might say I’m trying to influence him by feeding him information that’s unproven.”

“I see. Are you just not going to use him at all?”

“I’ll wait until after he testifies.”

“It might be too late then.”

“Can you think of a better idea?”

Tom removed the cigar from his mouth for a second to take a sip of beer. He had his legs spread out in front of him and his fishing rod resting on his lap. “I guess not,” he said.

Once again Kevin marveled at their ability to bounce ideas off each other with such ease. He couldn’t keep that to himself. “I wish I had you as a mentor like Ray Blackwell did.”

“Well, at least we have the present,” Tom said.

Kevin smiled to himself. “I guess you’re right. We can’t change the past.”

“Nor the future,” Tom added. “Have you heard from your guy in Bernie’s office yet?”

“Not yet. It should be any day now.”

“If he comes through for you.”

“I think he will.”

“How about Billy? Have you talked to him lately?”

“Every day. He’s holding up. The kids are doing okay too. I talked to Billy’s sister a couple of days ago.”

“Good,” Tom replied. “You know, this thing about Bernie representing everybody makes me think we’re missing something. I can’t put my finger on it, though.”