The Guardians: The explosive new thriller from international bestseller John Grisham (34 page)

I decide to hire him for other reasons. First, he believes in the cause and donates generously to Susan Ashley’s innocence group. Second, he believes in pro bono and expects his partners and associates to donate 10 percent of their time representing the less fortunate. Though he now zips around in his own jet, he grew up poor and remembers the pain of getting stepped on when his family was wrongfully evicted.

Three days after Mercado and Pfitzner are arrested, Cannon files on behalf of Quincy a $50 million federal lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections, Mickey Mercado, and Bradley Pfitzner. The lawsuit also names Robert Earl Lane and Jon Drummik, the assailants, along with Adam Stone and Skip DiLuca, but they will be dismissed later. Immediately after filing the lawsuit, Cannon convinces a magistrate to freeze the bank accounts and all other assets of Mercado and Pfitzner before the money slips away and disappears into the Caribbean.

With search warrants, the FBI assaults Mercado’s fancy condo in Coral Gables. They find some handguns, temporary phones, a cash box with only $5,000, and a laptop with little valuable information. Mercado lived in fear and avoided leaving tracks. However, two bank statements lead the FBI to three accounts totaling about $400,000. A similar raid on his office nets little more. Agnes assumes Mercado kept his goodies offshore in shady banks.

Pfitzner wasn’t quite so oily. A raid on his home was temporarily slowed when his wife went nuts and tried to block the doors. She was finally subdued with handcuffs and threatened with jail. Bank records lead to three accounts in Miami where the good-ole-boy sheriff has almost $3 million in cash. A money market account has slightly over $1 million. Not bad for a small-town sheriff.

Agnes thinks there’s more. Ditto for Cannon. If Pfitzner was brazen enough to keep $4 million in dirty dollars in U.S. banks, imagine what he stashed offshore. And Cannon knows how to find it. While the FBI starts leaning on Caribbean banks, Cannon hires a forensic accounting firm that specializes in tracking dirty money funneled out of the country.

As confident as he is, Cannon does not make predictions. He is, however, confident that his new client will recover a substantial amount in damages, minus, of course, the obligatory 40 percent off the top that stays with the law firm. I am silently hopeful that Guardian might get a few bucks to pay its utility bills, but that rarely happens.

Quincy, though, is not thinking about money these days. He’s too busy trying to walk. The doctors have operated on a shoulder, both collarbones, a jaw, and he has thick plaster on the top half of his torso and around one wrist. They have implanted three new teeth and braced his nose. He is in constant pain but tries gamely not to mention it. He has tubes draining one lung and one side of his brain. He is so medicated it’s difficult to determine how well his brain is working, but he is determined to get out of bed and move around. He growls at his physical therapists when their sessions end. He wants more—more walking, bending, massages, rubdowns, more challenges. He’s tired of the hospital but has no place to go. Garvin has nothing to offer as rehab and the health care is far below sub-par. When he’s wide awake he quarrels with me about getting him exonerated so he doesn’t have to return to Garvin.

Chapter 41

Word has spread through the family, and some of the Tafts are not happy with the idea of anyone poking around into Vida’s haunted house. The feeling is that she hexed it before she died and filled it with angry spirits who can’t get out. Unlocking the doors now could release all kinds of evil, with most of it undoubtedly aimed at her descendants. She died holding a hard grudge against those who sent her to the asylum. She was crazy as a coot in her final days but that didn’t stop her from blanketing the family with curses. According to Frankie, one strain of African witchcraft believes that curses die with the witch, but another says they can last forever. No living Taft wants to find out.

Frankie and I are riding in his shiny pickup toward Dillon. He’s driving, I’m texting. On the console between us is a 9-millimeter Glock, properly purchased and registered by him. If we gain entry into the house, he plans to take it with him.

“You don’t really believe in all that witchcraft stuff, do you Frankie?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Wait till you see the house. You won’t be so eager to go inside.”

“So, you’re worried about ghosts and goblins, stuff like that?”

“Keep laughing, boss.” He touches the Glock with his right hand. “You’ll wish you had one of these.”

“You can’t shoot a ghost, can you?”

“Never had to. But, just in case.”

“Well, you go in first, with the gun, and I’ll follow, okay?”

“We’ll see. If we get that far.”

We pass through the sad little town of Dillon and wind our way deeper into the country. At the end of a gravel drive there is an old pickup parked in front of the dilapidated house. As we slow to a stop, Frankie says, “There it is. The guy on the right is Riley, my buddy. Don’t know but I guess the other guy is his cousin Wendell. He could be the troublemaker.”

Wendell is about forty, a working man in dirty boots and jeans. He does not smile during the introductions and handshaking, nor does Riley. It is immediately obvious that a lot has been said and these two have issues. After a minute’s worth of small talk, Riley asks me, “So, what’s your plan here? What do you want?”

“We would like to go into the house and look around,” I say. “I’m sure you know why we’re here.”

“Look, Mr. Post,” Wendell begins respectfully, “I know that house inside and out. I lived here off and on as a kid. I found Vida when she died. And not long after she was gone I tried to live here with my wife and kids. Couldn’t do it. The place is haunted. Vida said she put a hex on it and, believe me, she did. Now, you’re looking for some boxes, and I’m telling you you’re not likely to find anything. I think there’s a small attic but I never saw it. We were too afraid to go up there.”

“Then let’s have a look,” I say, as confidently as possible. “You guys stay here while Frankie and I poke around.”

Riley and Wendell exchange hard looks. Riley says, “It ain’t that easy, Mr. Post. Nobody wants those doors opened.”

“Nobody? As in?” I ask.

“As in the family,” Wendell says with an edge. “We got some cousins around here, others scattered, and no one wants this place disturbed. You never knew Vida, but I’m telling you she’s still around and she’s not to be trifled with.” There is trepidation in his voice.

“I respect that,” I say, but I only
sound
sincere.

A breeze that only a second ago did not exist rustles through a willow tree with limbs overhanging the house. As if on cue, something grinds and squeaks on the back side of the roof and my arms instantly are covered with goose bumps. All four of us gawk at the house and take deep breaths.

We need to keep talking. I say, “Look, fellas, this is nothing more than the old needle in the haystack. No one knows for sure if Kenny Taft really took some evidence before the fire. If he did, then no one has a clue what he did with the stuff. It could be here in the attic, but chances are it disappeared somewhere else years ago. This is probably a waste of time, but we chase every lead. We just want to look around and then we’ll leave. Promise.”

“What if you find something?” Wendell asks.

“We’ll call the sheriff and turn it in. Maybe it can help us. But, regardless, it’s nothing that has any value to the family.” With these poor folks, the idea of some family jewels hidden in the attic is ludicrous.

Wendell takes a step back, walks around as if deep in thought, leans on the fender of a car, spits, crosses his arms against his chest, says, “I don’t think so.”

Riley says, “Right now, Wendell’s got more support than I do. If he says no, then the answer is no.”

I spread my hands and say, “One hour. Just give us one hour and you’ll never see us again.”

Wendell shakes his head. Riley watches him, says to Frankie, “Sorry.”

I give both of them a look of disgust. This is probably a shakedown, so let’s get it over with. I say, “All right. Look, this property is assessed by Ruiz County at $33,000. That’s roughly one hundred dollars each day for the entire year. We, Guardian Ministries, will lease the house and these premises for one day for two hundred dollars. From nine tomorrow morning until five tomorrow afternoon. With an option to extend one extra day at the same rate. What do you say?”

The Tafts absorb this and scratch their chins. “Sounds low,” Wendell says.

“How about five hundred a day?” Riley asks. “I think we can live with that.”

“Come on, Riley. We’re a nonprofit with no money. We can’t just pull cash out of our pockets. Three hundred.”

“Four hundred, take it or leave it.”

“Okay. Agreed. Under Florida law, any agreement dealing with land must be in writing. I’ll get a one-page lease contract and let’s meet back here at nine in the morning. Deal?”

Riley seems pleased. Wendell barely nods his head. Yes.

We leave Dillon as fast as possible and share a few laughs along the way. Frankie drops me off near my car on Main Street in Seabrook, and heads east. He’s staying in a motel somewhere between here and Gainesville, but as always the details are vague.

I enter the law offices of Glenn Colacurci a few minutes after five, and I hear him roaring on the phone somewhere in the rear. Bea, his lovely assistant, finally emerges and flashes that smile. I follow her back and find Glenn at his desk, piles of paperwork scattered on and around it. He leaps to his feet, thrusts out a hand, and says hello as if I’m his prodigal son. Almost as quickly, he glances at his watch, as if he has no idea what time it is, and says, “Well I’ll be damned, it’s five o’clock somewhere and it’s five o’clock here. What’ll it be?”

“Just a beer,” I say, keeping it on the light side.

“A beer and a double,” he says to Bea, who slinks away. “Come on, come on,” he says, pointing to his sofa. He waddles over with his cane and falls into an ancient, dusty pile of leather. I sit on the sagging sofa and shove a quilt out of the way. I assume he naps here each afternoon as he snores off his liquid lunch. With both hands on the heel of his cane, and his chin resting on his knuckles, he smiles wickedly and says, “I can’t believe Pfitzner’s really in jail.”

“Neither can I. It’s a gift.”

“Tell me about it.”

Assuming again that anything I say will be repeated at the coffee shop in the morning, I breeze through the quick version of the FBI’s fine work nailing an unnamed prison guard and his unnamed contact with the prison gang. This led to an operative working for the drug dealers, and he led to Pfitzner, who stepped into the trap with all the naivete of a small-time shoplifter. Now he’s facing thirty years.

Bea brings our drinks and we say, “Cheers.” His liquid is brown and there isn’t much ice in his glass. He smacks his lips as if parched, and says, “So what brings you to town?”

“I’d like to meet with the sheriff, Wink Castle, tomorrow if I can find him. We’re having conversations about reopening the investigation, especially now that we know Pfitzner tried to kill Quincy.” There is enough truth in this to explain why I’m in town. “Plus, I am curious about you. Last time we met in Gainesville you seemed to be having a good time digging through the case. Any more surprises?”

“Not really, been busy elsewhere.” He waves an arm at the landfill on his desk as if he’s pulling eighteen-hour days. “Any luck with the Kenny Taft angle?”

“Well, sort of. I need to retain your services for a bit of legal work.”

“Paternity, DUI, divorce, murder? You name it, you’re at the right place.” He roars at his own humor and I laugh along. He’s been using that same line for at least fifty years.

I get serious and explain our contacts with the Taft family and our plans to search the house. I hand him a $100 bill and make him take it. He’s now my lawyer and we shake hands. Everything is now confidential, or should be. I need a simple one-page lease that will impress the Taft family, along with a check drawn on Glenn’s trust account. I’m sure the family would prefer cash, but I prefer paperwork. If evidence is found in the house, the chain of custody will be hopelessly complicated and documentation will be crucial. Sipping our drinks, Glenn and I discuss this like a couple of seasoned lawyers analyzing a unique problem. He’s pretty savvy and sees a couple of potential problems I haven’t thought of. When his glass is empty, he summons Bea for another round. When she brings them, he instructs her to take notes in shorthand, just like in the old days. We hammer out the basics and she retires to her desk.

He says, “I noticed you staring at her legs.”

“Guilty. Something wrong with that?”

“Not at all. She’s a dear. Her mother, Mae Lee, runs my house, and for dinner every Tuesday prepares the most exquisite spring rolls you’ve ever tasted. Tonight’s your lucky night.”

I smile and nod. I have no other plans.

“Plus, my old pal Archie is coming over. I may have mentioned him before. Indeed, I think I did over sangria at The Bull. We’re contemporaries, practiced here decades ago. His wife died, left him some dough, so he quit the law, big mistake. He’s been bored for the last ten years, lives alone with little to do. Retirement’s a bad gig, Post. I think he has a crush on Mae Lee. Anyway, Archie loves spring rolls and is good for tall tales. And he’s a wine snot with a big cellar. He’ll bring the good stuff. You do wine?”