The Guardians: The explosive new thriller from international bestseller John Grisham (29 page)

Quincy’s condition improves each day and we slowly begin to believe that he will not die. I’m on a first-name basis with his doctors and staff by now and everybody is pulling for my client. He is as secure as possible, so I decide to hit the road. The place is driving me crazy. Who doesn’t hate sitting around a hospital? Savannah is five hours away and I’ve never been so homesick.

Somewhere around St. Augustine, Susan Ashley calls with the news that old Judge Jerry Plank has entered an order denying our petition for post-conviction relief. His decision is expected; the surprise is that he woke up long enough to do something. We were anticipating a wait of at least a year, but he disposed of it in two months. This is actually good news because it speeds along our appeal to the state supreme court. I don’t want to pull over and read his opinion, Susan Ashley says it’s very brief. A two-page order in which Plank says we provided no new evidence, in spite of the recantations from Zeke Huffey and Carrie Holland. Whatever. We were expecting to lose at the circuit court level. I cuss for a few minutes in traffic then settle down. There are times, many times, when I despise judges, especially blind ones and old ones and white ones, almost all of whom cut their teeth in prosecutors’ offices and have no sympathy for anyone accused of a crime. To them, everybody who is charged is guilty and needs time in jail. The system works beautifully and justice always prevails.

When my rant is over, I call Mazy as she’s reading the order. We discuss the appeal and she will drop everything and get it ready. When I arrive at the office late in the afternoon, she has a first draft prepared. We discuss it over coffee with Vicki and I tell stories about the events in Orlando.

Adam Stone made a clean swap with Jon Drummik’s phone. He took the old one as he ransacked the cell, and the following day handed a new one to Drummik. The FBI is scrambling to track old calls and listening to the new ones. They are confident that their targets will walk into the trap. They have no information on Mayhall, or at least none they can share with me, but they plan to watch him closely the next time he meets with Adam.

For three straight days before the attack on Quincy, Drummik called a cell phone in Delray Beach, north of Boca Raton. The day after the attack, he made only one call, to the same number. However, the trail ended when the number fizzled. It was a burner, a disposable phone with a thirty-day plan that was paid for by cash at a Best Buy store. Its owner is being very careful.

Adam does not have Mayhall’s phone number; has never had it. There is nothing to track until Mayhall calls, and he finally does. The FBI grabs the incoming number from Adam’s phone and follows it to another cell phone, also in Delray Beach. The puzzle is coming together. Monitoring the phone signal, the FBI picks up Mayhall’s scent as he buzzes along Interstate 95 headed north. The car he’s driving is registered to one Skip DiLuca of Delray Beach. White male, age fifty-one, four-time felon with manslaughter his worst sin, paroled three years earlier from a Florida prison, currently managing a shop selling used motorcycles.

DiLuca, aka Mayhall, arranges to meet Adam after work at a bar in Orange City, forty-five minutes from the prison. Adam says they always meet at the same place and have a quick beer as they talk shop. To avoid suspicion, Adam changes into street clothes. His handlers tape a small wire to his chest. He arrives first, selects a table, does a mike check, all bugs are working. An FBI crew is listening in the back of a van parked in the street behind the bar.

After a few curt pleasantries, the real conversation begins:

DiLuca: They didn’t kill Miller. What happened?

Adam: Well, several things went wrong. First, Miller knows how to fight and went crazy. Robert Earl Lane has a busted nose. Took a few minutes to subdue him, too much time. Once they had him down they couldn’t finish him off before another guard saw them. They didn’t cut him enough.

DiLuca: Where were you?

Adam: I was there, man, right where I was supposed to be. I know my turf. The ambush worked perfectly, just couldn’t get the guy down.

DiLuca: Well, he ain’t dead, and that’s a problem. We got paid for a job that’s not finished. The gentlemen I’m dealing with are not happy.

Adam: Not my fault. I did what I was supposed to do. Can’t you get him at the hospital?

DiLuca: Maybe. We’ve had a look, lots of uniforms in the way. His condition improves each day so our end of the deal stinks more and more. We were supposed to take him out, plain and simple. You tell Drummik and Lane that I’m really pissed about their lousy job. They promised me they could do it.

Adam: How much heat are you taking?

DiLuca: I’ll deal with it.

Their conversation is brief, and when they finish their beers, they step outside. DiLuca hands Adam a brown paper grocery bag with $1,000 in cash, two new cell phones, and a supply of drugs. He leaves without saying goodbye and hurries away. Adam waits until he is out of sight, then tells his handlers DiLuca is gone. He drives around the block and meets them on a side street.

Technically, legally, the FBI has the goods for an indictment against DiLuca, Adam, Drummik, and Lane for a contract killing, or an attempted one. But the two inmates are already locked up. Adam is too valuable as an informant. And DiLuca can lead them to the real catch.

Twenty minutes down the road, DiLuca sees blue lights in his mirror. He checks his speedometer and knows damned well he is not violating the law. He is on parole and treasures his freedom; thus, he sticks to the rules, or at least the rules of the road. A county officer takes his license and registration, and spends half an hour calling it in. DiLuca begins to squirm. When the officer returns, he asks, rudely, “You been drinking?”

“One beer,” DiLuca answers truthfully.

“That’s what they all say.”

Another county car with flashing lights arrives, and parks in front of DiLuca’s car. Two officers get out and glare at him as if he has just murdered some children. The three huddle and kill more time as DiLuca fumes. Finally, he is ordered out of the car.

“What the hell for?” he demands as he closes his door. He should not have. Two officers grab him and force him across the hood of his car while another slaps on handcuffs.

“You were swerving recklessly,” the first officer says.

“The hell I was,” DiLuca snaps.

“Just shut up.”

They search his pockets, take his phone and wallet, and toss him rather roughly into the back seat of the first patrol car. As he is taken away, an officer calls a wrecker, then calls the FBI. At the station, DiLuca is placed in a holding room where he is forced to pose for a mug shot, then left to sit for the next four hours.

A federal magistrate on standby in Orlando quickly approves two search warrants; one for DiLuca’s apartment, the other for his car. FBI agents enter the apartment in Delray Beach and go to work. It is a one-bedroom apartment with sparse, cheap furnishings and no evidence whatsoever of a woman. The kitchen counters are covered with dirty dishes. Laundry is piled in the hallway. The refrigerator has nothing more than beer, water, and cold cuts. The coffee table in the den is littered with hardcore porn magazines. A laptop is found in a tiny office and carried outside to a van where a technician copies the hard drive. Two burners are found, opened, analyzed, tapped, and put back on the desk. Listening devices are hidden throughout the apartment. After two hours the team is finished, and while normally it would be fastidious in rearranging things, DiLuca is such a slob it would be impossible for him or anyone else to notice that a surveillance team had spent the evening rummaging through his apartment.

Another team goes through his car and finds nothing important but another burner. Evidently, DiLuca has no permanent cell phone number. Digging through the cheap phone, the technician hits pay dirt in the Contacts file. DiLuca has only ten numbers in memory, and one is for Mickey Mercado, the operative who showed up in court to eavesdrop on our motion for post-conviction relief. In the Recents file, there are twenty-two incoming and outgoing calls from and to Mercado in the past two weeks.

A GPS monitor is attached to the inside of his rear bumper so the car cannot escape surveillance. At 10:00 p.m., the county sheriff enters the holding room and apologizes to DiLuca. He explains that there was a bank robbery near Naples earlier in the day and the getaway car matched DiLuca’s. They suspected him, but now realize they were wrong. He is free to go.

DiLuca is not gracious and forgiving, and leaves as quickly as possible. He is suspicious and decides not to return to Delray Beach. He is also wary of using his burner so he makes no calls. He drives two hours to Sarasota and checks into a budget motel.

The next morning, the same federal magistrate issues a warrant authorizing the search of the apartment of Mercado and the electronic surveillance of his telephones. Another warrant directs his cell phone provider to open its records. However, before the bugging is complete, DiLuca calls Mercado from a pay phone. He is then tracked from Sarasota to Coral Gables where his trail is picked up by a team of FBI agents. He finally parks at an Afghan kebob restaurant on Dolphin Avenue and goes inside. Fifteen minutes later, a young female agent saunters inside for a bite and identifies DiLuca eating with Mickey Mercado.

DiLuca’s chilling comment to Adam that they had “had a look” at Quincy in the hospital ratchets up the security there. Quincy is moved again, to another corner room, and he is never left unwatched.

Agent Agnes Nolton keeps me abreast of these developments, though I do not know everything. I caution her against using our phones, and we use encrypted e-mails. She is confident that (1) Quincy will be protected, and (2) they will soon ensnare Mercado in their conspiracy. One source of concern is that he has dual citizenship and can come and go as he pleases. If he becomes suspicious, he might simply run home and never be seen again. Nolton believes that nailing Mercado will be our ultimate prize. The conspirators above him, the real criminals, are probably not in the U.S. and virtually immune from prosecution.

With the FBI fully on board, and with our client still alive, we can return our attention to exonerating him.

Chapter 35

The sangria is calling. Glenn Colacurci is thirsty and wants to meet again at The Bull in Gainesville. After two days of trying to rest in Savannah, I head south again and the adventure continues. Quincy has been eased out of his coma and is fairly alert. His vitals improve each day and his doctors are talking about moving him out of ICU and into a private room where they can begin planning the surgeries to mend his bones. They repeatedly assure me that security is tight, so I’m not compelled to hustle down for more hours of sitting in the hall and staring at my feet.

I get to The Bull minutes after 4:00 p.m. and Glenn’s tall glass is already half empty. His large fleshy nose is turning pink, a shade that almost matches the drink. I order the same and look around for his cute little secretary who I catch myself thinking about more than I should. I don’t see Bea.

Glenn has read about Quincy’s problems and wants the inside scoop. Since I’ve known a hundred small-town windbag lawyers like him, I reveal nothing new. As with most prison beatings, details are sparse and sketchy. In a grave conspiratorial whisper he informs me that the local weekly newspaper in Ruiz County is now following Quincy’s case and our efforts to exonerate him. I absorb this in rapt attention and pass on the opportunity to tell him that Vicki is monitoring half the newspapers—weekly and daily—in the State of Florida. She keeps a running record of every word printed about the case. We live on the Internet. Glenn stumbles across it once a week.

This meeting has a purpose, other than drinking, and after half an hour I realize that the sangria is the oil of conversation. He smacks his lips, brushes his mouth with a sleeve, and finally gets down to business. “So, I gotta tell you, Post, I’ve been thinking about this case night and day. Really into it, you know. This all happened on my watch, back in my glory days when I was in the state senate and also ran the biggest law firm in the county, and, well, you know, I thought I was really in the loop. I figured Pfitzner was working both sides of the street, but we stayed in our lanes, if you know what I mean. He ran his show, got his votes, I did the same. When Keith got his head blown off and your boy got convicted for it, well, I was satisfied. I wanted the death penalty. The whole town was relieved. Looking back, though . . .”

He sees the waiter, flags him over, drains the dregs from his glass, and orders another round. I have at least six inches of liquid left in mine. With plenty of time on the clock, this could spiral into one sloppy afternoon.

He catches his breath and continues. “Looking back, though, things don’t add up. I’m kin to half the county and represented the other half. Last time I ran for reelection I got eighty percent of the vote and I was pissed about the lost twenty. There’s an old deputy, won’t give you the name, but he used to run cases for me. I’d pay him in cash and give him a cut when we settled. Did the same for ambulance drivers and tow truck operators. Had ’em all on the payroll. Anyway, the deputy is still around, lives near the Gulf, and I’ve been talking to him. He retired years ago, health’s in the tank but hell he’s pushing eighty. He worked on Pfitzner’s staff and managed to stay on his good side. He did the light stuff—traffic, football games, school events. Wasn’t much of a cop but didn’t want to be. Just enjoyed the uniform and the paycheck. Says you’re right, says Pfitzner was on the take with the drug traffickers, says it was known throughout the force. Pfitzner had these two brothers—”