“Why didn’t you knock? Wake us up. Or call. You have my numbers.”
She smiled again. “I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d get. I was actually hoping J.D. would be the first one up.”
I laughed. “She usually is. You want some coffee?”
“I’d kill for a cup.”
“Have a seat. I’ll put the coffee on and get J.D. up.”
I didn’t have to bother. J.D. came padding out of the bedroom, barefoot and wrapped in an old robe I kept in the closet. “I thought I heard you,” she said as she rushed to Katie, “but I thought I was dreaming.”
“No, Jed. It’s me. In the flesh.”
They hugged for a long time and when J.D. pulled away she was smiling. “You’ve changed, little sister,” she said.
Katie laughed. “I guess I have. More than you can see.”
“Bad times, huh?”
“Terrible times, but I’m ready to put it behind me.”
“We just got your letter yesterday,” I said. “I thought you’d decided to move on. I was afraid I’d said or done something to spook you.”
“No. Reading about Porter King’s murder is what spooked me. I was planning to disappear, but I decided I was going to have to face this sooner or later so I took a Greyhound from Tampa to Bradenton then got a city bus out to the beach on the other side of the bridge. I think I got the last one of the day. I walked from the bus stop here. I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t followed, but I think that was my paranoia kicking in.”
“How did you know where I live?” I asked. The business card I had given her listed only my post office box.
She chuckled. “You can find out almost anything with computers.”
“You want to talk about it?” J.D. asked.
“That’s why I’m here, J.D. It’s a long story and I think you might find some of it unbelievable, but I want you to hear it. You make the decision if I’m nuts or lying and I’ll live with it. If you want me to disappear again, I’ll do it. But I’m tired of running and hiding and looking over my shoulder all the time.”
“Do you mind if Matt sits in?”
“He’s your guy?”
“He’s my guy. He’s the guy, the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
I went to the kitchen, feeling quite smug, and brought them coffee in two mugs and went back for my own. They had settled onto the sofa and I took the chair across from them. “Katie,” I said, “if you’d rather talk to J.D. alone, I’ll understand.”
“Sounds like you’re family now, Matt. That means you have to put up with the crazy little sister.”
“There’s one more member of my and J.D.’s family asleep in his room. He’s the one I told you about, the one to call if you needed anything. I don’t know of anybody who is better situated to help you get out of whatever you’re in. I’d like for him to sit in on this if you don’t mind.”
Katie looked at J.D who nodded. “I agree, Katie. Jock has resources that a mere cop can’t touch.”
Katie nodded. “Okay. Wake him up.”
J.D. laughed. “Oh, he’s awake. He sleeps like a cat.” She got up and went to Jock’s door, knocked and said, “Jock, come meet Katie Fredrickson.”
Jock opened the door and followed J.D. back to the living room. She introduced him to Katie. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Katie. I’m sorry you’ve had a bad time, but I think we can fix it. Let me get a cup of coffee.”
“Start at the beginning, Katie,” said J.D. “Tell us about Jim’s death. I’m guessing that whoever killed him was somebody pretty powerful or you wouldn’t have run, cut yourself off from your friends and family. Who killed Jim?”
Katie looked at J.D. for a couple of beats, as if mulling over something in her mind. She seemed to snap out of whatever reverie she had escaped to and said simply, “I killed Jim.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“Do you think you caused his death in some way?” J.D. asked.
“Yes,” said Katie. “I pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into his worthless head.”
J.D. sat back in her chair. “Katie,” she said, “I’m a cop. I’m also your friend, but I’m a cop first. Maybe you shouldn’t tell me anything more.”
“No. I’ve got to tell the whole story. It’s sordid and you’re going to think a lot less of me when I’m finished, but it’s time everything came out. When I’ve finished, if you have to arrest me, I’ll understand.”
“What happened?” J.D. asked, her voice soft, as if she were speaking to a child. “Whatever it is, we’ll work through it. I promise.”
“It all started about a year before Jim’s death,” Katie said. “He had gotten mixed up with some bad people. They were dealing in drugs in a pretty big way.”
“Why would Jim do something like that?” J.D. asked. “He had a good law practice.”
“He did. But he also had developed some expensive tastes. We were having trouble making the mortgage payments on that big house he insisted on buying. His Mercedes was about to be repossessed, and he was going to be deeply embarrassed in front of his friends and colleagues.”
“How did he get involved in the drug trade?” I asked. “That’s not the kind of thing you just decide to do one day. You’ve got to have a source and customers.”
“Jim had represented some underworld types on criminal matters and got to know them pretty well. Most of their money came from drugs, and Jim and one of his law partners, who was also in financial trouble, indicated that they would like to get into the business. One day Jim got a call from one of the bigwigs in the drug business and offered to cut him in if he would do all their legal work, including a lot of transactional stuff about buying and selling businesses and real estate. He agreed and they were off to the races.”
“Sal Bonino offered him the deal,” Jock said.
Katie looked shocked. “Yes. How did you know?”
“And the lawyer partner who joined the deal was Wayne Evans,” Jock said.
“Right again,” Katie said. “It sounds like you know as much as I do.”
“Not really,” said J.D. “But when I got your first text message, I knew that either you were in big trouble or it was some kind of hoax. The reference to ‘Jed’ made me think it wasn’t a hoax. We’ve been trying to put some of the pieces together. One of Sal Bonino’s thugs tried to beat up Matt the day after he went to Winter Park to see your parents.”
She looked at me and something moved across her face. Fear, shock, regret? I couldn’t tell. “You went to see my parents?” she asked.
“I did, but I didn’t tell them we’d heard from you. I was trying to figure out if they knew anything. If they’d heard from you.”
Katie breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks for that.”
“So what happened after Jim got involved with Bonino?” I asked.
“They began to sell drugs. They’d pick them up from Bonino and store them in the Avon Park house where Jim grew up until they could get them to the street dealers. They had a big safe out there where they kept cocaine and money.”
“Did you ever meet Bonino?” Jock asked.
“No. I don’t think Jim did either. There were always go-betweens.”
“Who did Jim sell the drugs to?” J.D. asked.
“Bonino had a ring of dealers in Sarasota and Bradenton. Jim thought the main reason Bonino brought him and Evans in was that Bonino needed help with the distribution to the street dealers.”
“So, you knew Jim was dealing drugs,” J.D. said.
“Not at first. But I began to suspect it when Jim took me to the Avon Park house and tried to sell me to one of the bosses.”
“Sell you?” J.D. asked.
“Yes. The boss offered to pay Jim ten thousand dollars to sleep with me.”
“Tell me how that happened,” J.D. said.
“Jim took me to Avon Park to what he called a party at his old house. I hadn’t been there in years and was surprised to see that Jim had done a lot of remodeling and fix
ing up. There were five men there that night, including Jim. There were also four women, probably prostitutes. They were drinking and snorting cocaine. I was pretty upset that Jim would bring me into such a situation, but he said they were businessmen that he was working with on some projects that would make us a lot of money.”
“Tell me about him trying to sell you,” J.D. said.
“One of the men held up ten one thousand dollar bills and said he would pay them to Jim if I’d sleep with him. I was standing right there when he made the offer. I expected Jim to slug him, but Jim said it was all right with him as long as I agreed. I told him to go to hell. I said it was time for us to leave. The man said, ‘Look, honey. Just go in the room at the end of the hall and get naked. I’ll be right there and do you.’ Jim laughed and I started for the door. Jim stopped me and asked what I was doing. I told him that either he took me home, or I was going to start walking.”
She sat quietly for a moment, probably thinking about her humiliation that night in Avon Park. “What happened?” asked J.D.
“He took me home. I was crying, almost hysterical. He kept telling me it was a joke and that he was sorry. I slept in the guest room that night and the next. But then I started to feel better, even euphoric. Every day was brighter than the day before. Sex with Jim was better than ever. A couple of weeks went by, three maybe, or four. I don’t really remember. The days all ran together. I didn’t care. Life was grand. And then the bottom fell out. I found myself dropping off a cliff, hitting bottom, and not bouncing back. I craved the euphoria of the weeks before. I stayed in my room curled up in the bed, crying, hurting. I told Jim I needed to see a doctor. He told me to ride it out. I was like that for two days, and then Jim gave me some medicine that turned me completely around. The euphoria came back, not as exquisite, but still so much better than the two days in bed.
“The next day, I began to drop again. The cliff was back, and I was falling into the abyss. Jim gave me more medicine, and I almost immediately soared back to the top, or almost the top. I couldn’t seem to get all the way back, but still, it was good.”
“He was drugging you,” said J.D. “Do you know what he was using?”
“No. Later the doctors I saw figured it was some sort of cocaine-based substance, but by the time I got to them, there wasn’t enough in my system to measure or to identify.”
“What happened with the drugs Jim was giving you?” J.D. asked.
“Jim finally told me that he had drugged my food. I never did know whether he was telling me the truth or if the drug got into my system some other way. It didn’t matter. I was hooked. Without the drugs, I’d crash and want to die. He told me he’d continue to supply me with the ‘medicine’ but I had to do exactly what he told me to do. I agreed. Hell, at that point I’d have agreed to anything.”
“What did he want you to do?” J.D. asked.
Katie put her head in her hands and choked back a sob. She didn’t look up, but said, “He made me sleep with his buddies.”
“It’s okay, Katie,” J.D. said. “Do you want to stop?”
“No,” Katie said, and looked up, defiance on her face. “That bastard made me undress in front of his friends, the same ones from the house in Avon Park. I’d take one of them into the bedroom. Jim took pictures of them screwing me.”
“God,” said J.D. “I’m so sorry, Katie.”
“This went on for weeks,” Katie said. “One of the men made me do unspeakable things. Things I won’t talk about. But I did them. I’d do anything for the next high. I knew what was happening and I was so ashamed I wanted to die. I thought about suicide, but couldn’t do it.” She was quiet then, her hands clenched together in her lap, her head down.
J.D. touched Katie’s arm, a calming gesture, or one of condolence for lost innocence, a bit of human contact. “Do you know who the man was?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Oh, yeah. I remember him like it was yesterday.” She raised her head, her eyes blazing, a look of disgust crossing her face. “I was never so glad to see somebody dead. The day I read about his murder in the paper was one of the best days I’ve had since I got off the drugs. The sorry bastard was named Porter King.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
“Let’s take a break,” J.D. said. “I’ll get some clothes on and fix breakfast. Katie, why don’t you use the guest room, it’s the one in the middle down the hall. You make yourself at home there. You’ll stay with us until we get this sorted out. Take a shower if you like. Breakfast will be ready in thirty minutes.”
Katie picked up her backpack and said, “Thanks, Jed. I’ll be out in a few minutes. The worst of the story is almost over.”
We finished a breakfast of eggs, grits, toast, and bacon just as the sun began to emerge from the mainland. It was going to be a beautiful day. We put our dishes in the sink and went back to the living room, taking our coffee.
“Are you up to continuing?” asked J.D.
Katie smiled. “Yes. I need to get this out of my system.”
“How long did this ordeal last?” J.D. asked.
“Several weeks. Jim was getting rich, and all his buddies were getting me on a regular basis. I was as high as a kite and deathly afraid that my loving husband would withhold the drugs I needed. I did whatever he told me to do. Until one evening in January of last year. I don’t know what happened. Maybe the drugs were wearing off and I was having a lucid moment before the fear and depression set in. The big boss, the one who reported directly to Bonino, was at the house with a girl whom I think was a prostitute. They were all naked and the girl and the boss were having sex on the sofa. Jim was standing there with an erection, watching. I was dressed. Jim told me to get naked. He said the boss would deal with me as soon as he got finished with the girl on the sofa.
“I noticed a pistol on top of the clothes Jim had left on a chair. It was the one he’d begun carrying regularly. I’d never fired a gun, never even picked one up. But I’d watched enough TV to know you just pulled the hammer back and pulled the trigger and the gun would fire. I picked it up and pointed it at Jim’s head and pulled the trigger. He went down and the boss started screaming at me.
“Jim had left a backpack on the floor next to his clothes. I’d seen the boss give it to him when he first came in with the girl. There was cash in the bag, lots of it, although I had no idea how much. It turned out to be almost a hundred thousand dollars in various denominations. I picked up the bag and ran out the front door.”
“Why didn’t you shoot the boss?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Jim was the cause of my becoming,” she paused, “whatever I was. I guess I just thought that if he was dead, my troubles would be over. Or at least Jim wouldn’t be around to keep me in some sort of drug-induced stupor.”
“How did you get away?” J.D. asked.
“When I got to the street in front of my house, I saw an elderly man in a car. I think he might have been parked in front of one of the neighbors because he was just pulling away from the curb. I called to him and he stopped. I told him I’d give him a thousand dollars to drive me to Tampa. He took me there to the Greyhound station, and I got on the first bus headed north. The old man wouldn’t take any money. Just wished me well.
“When the bus got to Atlanta early the next morning, I put some cash in my pocket and stashed the backpack in a locker and took a taxi to the nearest hospital. I was in pretty bad shape. I’d been without drugs for about twelve hours and I was going to pieces. I told the emergency room doctors that I’d been on drugs and needed to get clean. They recommended a treatment center and a driver in a van came and took me across town to a pretty place on the north side. I checked in and told them I could only stay a few days. I knew I had to get back to the bus station and get the money I’d left in the locker. I didn’t know how long it was going to have to last me, and I knew the boss had a lot of power and resources to find me. I had to establish a new identity right from the start. I gave the people at the center a false name. I didn�
��t have any identification and told them I’d probably lost it somewhere. I don’t know if they believed me, but they took me in and worked hard to get me clean. After a few days, I got one of the drivers to take me back to the bus station and I retrieved the money and spent the next three months in the center. It was the most peaceful time I’ve known in years.”
I could tell Katie was running down. She’d been talking nonstop for the better part of an hour. She seemed to be in a rush to get it all out, to tell us what her life had been like for the past year. I said, “Maybe we ought to let Katie get some rest.”
“I’m okay,” Katie said. “Let me get this done and then I’ll rest. Ask me something. They’re probably blanks I need to fill in.”
“Why did you wait so long to contact me?” asked J.D. “Didn’t you trust me to help you?”
“I killed a man, J.D., and you’re a cop. I wasn’t sure what the police knew. Had they figured out that I had killed Jim? I just didn’t know the lay of the land. I assumed I was a fugitive.”
“How did you get the pictures texted from Detroit?” I asked.
Katie laughed. “I guessed that you’d figure out where the pictures originated and I didn’t want to let you know that I was in Tampa. My best friend in the center was a young man who was going home to Detroit when he finished his rehab. He left before I did. I went to a Wal-Mart and bought seven disposable phones and paid cash for enough minutes on each to last for a couple of years. I labeled each phone with a day of the week and told him that if I needed him, I’d call on the phone that matched the day I was calling.
“When I decided to send J.D. the picture, I sent it to my friend through my computer, and he then texted it to J.D. I knew you’d run into a dead end when you tried to track where the text had come from.”
J.D. said, “Let’s stop for now. You take a nap. We’ll make sure you’re not disturbed and we can finish this when you’re not so tired.”
“Okay,” said Katie. “You’re probably right.”
Found Page 27
