Found

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “I do have one question,” J.D. said. “Do you know the boss’s name? The one who was there when you shot Jim?”

  Katie smiled ruefully. “You won’t believe me.”

  “Try me,” said J.D.

  Katie shrugged, as if she didn’t care whether we believed her or not. She said, “He’s a Sarasota policeman. Captain Doug McAllister.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  When Katie was gone, I said, “Jock, somebody tried to take J.D. and me out last night.” I told him about the shoot-out on Broadway. “The guy driving the garbage truck was the same one who tried to kill us on Sunday.”

  “You’re sure it’s the same guy?” Jock asked.

  “Positive.”

  My doorbell sounded and I went to open the door. It was Chief Bill Lester and Officer Steve Carey. I invited them in, offered coffee, which they declined, and told them to take a seat. Jock went into the kitchen and returned with another cup of coffee.

  “How’re you holding up, J.D.?” asked Lester.

  “I’m fine, Chief, considering I killed a man with a shotgun less than twelve hours ago.”

  “You did the right thing, but you know you’ll have to be on administrative suspension until the sheriff’s office sorts this out.”

  J.D. made a face, but she knew the rules. Any officer-involved shooting requires a thorough investigation by another police agency, in this case the Manatee County sheriff’s office. “How long will that take?” she asked.

  “A few days,” Lester said. “I’ll try to hurry them along.”

  “What do I do in the meantime?” she asked.

  “I’m putting you on paid leave until the investigation is done.”

  “Wait, Chief. You don’t think I did anything wrong here, do you?”

  “Absolutely not. But if you’re on leave, you don’t have to sit in the office and do paperwork. You’re free to pursue any activities you want as long as it’s not official business.” He winked.

  J.D. laughed. “Okay. Thanks, Bill. I’ll try not to embarrass you. Have you come up with IDs on the bad guys yet?”

  The chief looked at Carey who said, “Yeah. You’ll be surprised to know they were all in the system. The one who went after you and Matt on Sunday was a local named Carlton Owens. He was picked up last year for trying to intimidate one of our citizens who owned a used car business that our friend Sal Bonino was trying to buy. The man sold his business and refused to press charges. The other two were strangers to the local law. They had records in New Jersey. We don’t know how long they’d been here, but they haven’t gotten into trouble since they left Jersey.”

  Bill Lester stood up. “Steve needs to take statements from you. I’ll be on my way. Call me if you need anything, J.D.”

  Steve put a digital voice recorder on the coffee table and began to question J.D. and me. I told him that the man I’d shot in the back had almost got me with his first shot, but turned to run when J.D. let loose with the shotgun. I thought he was running for the cover of the open car door. If he made it, I’d be a sitting duck. He’d have a clear shot at me and I had no place to take cover, at least no place I could get to before he settled in and killed me. Steve smiled. When we finished, he shut down the recorder and said, “Self-defense, Matt. If the shooter had reached the door of his car, you’d be dead.”

  “You know that wasn’t what I was thinking when I shot the bastard.”

  He grinned. “I just deal with the facts, sir, and I have the facts on my trusty recorder.”

  After Steve left, Jock said, “We’ve got to take McAllister out.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “What about due process?” J.D. asked. She had always had a problem with Jock’s methods. What he did for his country was almost always extralegal. He didn’t have time to follow laws that were made for normal people living in an orderly society. He operated in a jungle that was beyond J.D.’s understanding.

  “You mean like the due process he gave Katie?” Jock asked.

  J.D. was quiet for a moment. “I don’t like it,” she said. “You know that, Jock, but I’m beginning to see that sometimes your way might be the only way. McAllister is so wired with the Sarasota P.D. that he might walk. It’d be Katie’s word against his, and Katie has already confessed to killing her husband. McAllister’s a decorated police officer. It wouldn’t be much of a contest.”

  “Do you believe Katie?” I asked.

  J.D. thought about that for a beat. “Absolutely,” she said. “She’d have no reason to make any of that up.”

  “It could be a complex excuse for Jim’s murder,” I said.

  “Then where did the money in the backpack come from?” J.D. asked. “And what about the Avon Park house, the weapons, and the safe? And how would you explain a pitiful ten-acre grove with a few producing trees going for ten million bucks in a bad economy?”

  “You should’ve been a lawyer,” I said.

  She grinned. “Couldn’t do it,” she said. “The minute they found out I had principles, I would’ve been kicked out of law school.”

  “Well,” I said. “There’s that.”

  “I agree,” said Jock. “I believe Katie. I think we need to confront McAllister when he’s out of his element. Where his badge doesn’t protect him. Do you know where he lives, J.D.?”

  “No, but I can probably find out.”

  “I’m thinking we take him at home,” said Jock. “Tonight.”

  “What’s your plan?” I asked.

  “I want to put the fear of God into the bastard,” Jock said. “If we go in at night, late, after he’s asleep, I think I can do that.”

  “I’d bet on it,” said J.D., sardonically.

  “Do you know if he’s married?” I asked.

  “Divorced,” J.D. said, “and I don’t think he has anyone living with him.”

  “We still need to find out a few things from Katie,” I said. “Like what she knows about U166 and why she would have given us that clue in the last text.”

  “I’d also like to know who the other two guys were,” Jock said.

  “Other two?” I asked.

  Jock said, “Katie told us there were five guys, including Jim, at the Avon Park house the first time Jim tried to get her to join the fun. We know that McAllister and King were there. Who are the other two?”

  “Good question,” said J.D.

  “Another thing,” I said. “I was surprised at Katie’s reaction when I told her I’d been to see her parents.”

  “So was I,” said J.D. “At first, I thought it might just be her fear that if they knew she was alive, they might mention it to McAllister. But then, why wouldn’t she trust them enough not to tell anybody if she asked them not to?”

  “We still don’t have a lot of the answers, Jock.”

  “I don’t want to overdo this,” said J.D. “Katie’s been through a lot. She’s pretty fragile.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “but I think she’s tougher than you give her credit for. What could be worse than what she’s already told us?”

  J.D. shrugged, but the answers to that question would make me despair of the human race.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Jock and I went for a run on the beach. J.D. stayed at the cottage to watch over Katie and be there when she awoke. The late-morning temperature had barely climbed into the sixties. The beach was deserted and we made good time on the hard-packed sand. We were finishing up and walking toward the North Shore Drive beach access when I saw a tall angular man standing at the beach end of the boardwalk. He waved at us.

  “That looks like Harry Robson,” I said.

  “Careful,” said Jock. He put his right hand behind his waist, touching the pistol he always carried in a holster in the small of his back. Even when he was wearing sweatpants.

  “He’s okay.”

  “You’re probably right, but this has been one strange day so far.”

  We walked toward the ramp. “Good morning, Harry,” I said. “What
brings you to paradise?”

  Harry said, “I stopped by your house. J.D. told me I could find you here. I need to talk to you guys. I’m not happy about the way my boss is handling the King investigation.”

  “As your boss pointed out,” I said, “we’re just a couple of civilians. I don’t see how we can help.”

  “I filled J.D. in this morning,” Harry said. “Jock, I don’t know exactly what you do, but I know you do it for the federal government and you’re the best we have at whatever it is you do.” He grinned ruefully. “I know from Bill Lester that you two get involved in all kinds of things that you probably shouldn’t and always come out smelling like roses.”

  “Talk to us, Harry,” said Jock.

  “Can I buy you lunch at Mar Vista?” he said.

  “Do we have time to get cleaned up?” I asked.

  “No. I’ve got to get back. Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”

  The restaurant was busy but, at our request, we were seated at a table under the trees away from the other diners. We ordered drinks and looked briefly at the menus. “What’s up, Harry?” I asked.

  “The press has been all over the King case. That always happens when we have a murder in the high rent districts.”

  “You’re not surprised, are you?” I asked.

  “No. But what does surprise me is how McAllister is handling it.”

  “How’s that?” Jock asked.

  “He’s telling the reporters that all the evidence leads us to believe that the murders were the result of a random robbery that went bad. There’s absolutely no evidence pointing to anything other than that this was an execution.”

  “Maybe he can’t say that without causing a panic among the downtown residents,” I said.

  “That’s a point, but why is he trying to pass that story off on me and the other cops?”

  “Have you called him on his story?” Jock asked.

  “This morning. I sat down with him and asked what the hell was going on. He said I just had to trust him on this one because it involved some very highly placed people. I pointed out that King and his girlfriend were not exactly high-profile folks.”

  “No they weren’t,” I said. “Did you see the report J.D. sent to McAllister about her conversation with the girlfriend on the afternoon of the murders?”

  “No. It’s not in the file. I assumed she hadn’t sent it.”

  “Did he tell you that Josie Tyler called J.D. and left a voice mail just before the murders?”

  “No. Did he know that?”

  “I was there when J.D. told him,” I said. “I think the call is probably on the printout from the phone company as well.”

  “I never saw the printout. It’s not in the file.”

  “I can see why you’re concerned,” I said.

  “There’s more,” Harry said. “I talked to the people who cleaned the manager’s office on the afternoon of the murders. They were both adamant that they did not knock the router’s plug out of the wall. They said it was under a table and a couple of feet off the floor. They would have run the vacuum cleaner under the table, but they couldn’t have knocked out the plug. They were aware it was there and that it was important. I think somebody unplugged it on purpose.”

  “Who do you think did it?” Jock asked.

  “I don’t know, but it has to be somebody with some juice with McAllister. The cleaning people told me that McAllister never talked to them. That’s just not something that an experienced detective would forget to do.”

  “Maybe he thought somebody else was handling it,” I said.

  “I doubt it. He was playing this one very close to the vest, not involving me or any of the other detectives.”

  “Is that unusual?” asked Jock.

  “Very much so. We usually work as a team and just report back to McAllister. If he ever does get involved in the investigation, he just becomes another member of the team. He’s never taken one over before and not involved the rest of us.”

  “What was J.D.’s take on all this?” I asked.

  “She thought it very odd. She wanted me to tell you about it, but she also seemed a little anxious to get me out of the cottage. I guess she’s still reacting from last night.”

  “You know about the attack last night?” I asked.

  “Yeah. McAllister mentioned it this morning. I’m glad you two are all right.”

  “What did McAllister tell you?” I asked.

  “Just that some shooters tried to take you and J.D. out last night, but that you managed to kill all three of the bad guys.”

  “How would McAllister know about that?” I asked.

  “It was a pretty big story down at the station. The word gets out quick anytime a cop is involved in a shooting. I’m not concerned that McAllister knew about it.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Only that it happened near your house.”

  “Harry,” Jock said, “what do you want us to do about this?”

  Harry shook his head. “I don’t know, Jock. I thought I ought to tell J.D. about my suspicions, and she wanted me to tell you two. She has an interest in the murders since they’re tied into a case she’s working here on the island. I can’t go to anybody in my department. McAllister’s been around a long time and is owed a lot of favors. I just thought J.D. ought to know. And she thought you and Matt should know.”

  We finished our meal, talking about inconsequential things. Harry left and Jock and I walked home to find J.D. and Katie sitting in the living room. Katie was sobbing, spasms shaking her whole body, struggling to catch her breath and then sobbing some more. J.D. was sitting across from her, a stunned look on her face, a rictus of horror and disgust and unfathomable sadness.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Katie got up as we walked in, excused herself, and went into the guest room and slammed the door. “Is she all right?” I asked.

  “No, but I think she’ll be better now that she’s got some of that out of her system.”

  “Some of what?”

  “The reason she didn’t want her parents to know she’s alive is that she’s as much afraid of her dad as she is of McAllister.”

  “Tell us about it,” I said.

  “George Bass abused her as a child. Sexually. She doesn’t think her mother knew anything about it, and Katie tried to put it behind her when she left for college. I guess that’s one of the reasons she fell for Jim Fredrickson. She wanted to be independent of her father.”

  “Did Katie ever confront George?” I asked.

  “Yes. A week before her disappearance. She went for a short visit to talk to George. She didn’t want her mom to know what was going on with her, so she went at a time that she knew her mother would be out of the house volunteering at the hospital. Katie asked George for help. She told him that she was addicted to some kind of drug and told him what she’d been doing in order to get the drugs. She wanted George to help her get away from Jim and into rehab.”

  “He refused?” I asked.

  “Not only did he refuse, he blew a gasket. He told her that she was nothing but a whore, selling herself for drugs. She was no better than the streetwalkers. Apparently things got real tense, real quick. Katie asked George if he’d thought her a slut when he was sneaking into her room late at night when she was a little girl.”

  “And George’s response?” I asked.

  “He laughed. He told her that she wasn’t his child, that he and Betty had adopted her when she was an infant. Katie didn’t believe him, so he brought her the adoption papers. She asked why they hadn’t told her before now, and he said that it was because Betty didn’t want to raise the issue. Ever.”

  “That must have been devastating,” I said.

  “It was. Katie told George that she was going to the cops. She knew that her husband and his cronies were involved in some bad stuff and she was going to turn them in and get herself into rehab.”

  “George’s reaction?” I asked.

  “He said he’d
kill her if she went to the police. He told her that he and Jim were in business together and there was a lot of money to be made. If she upset that apple cart, he’d kill her. Betty, too. ‘You’ve got your mother’s life in your hands,’ he told her. His exact words. The last thing George said to her before she left, and I’m quoting Katie directly, was, ‘You fuck up and she dies.’”

  “Katie’s father was working with her husband?” Jock asked.

  “Apparently, so,” J.D. said.

  “Then George Bass would have known that Katie was alive,” Jock said. “McAllister would have told him.”

  “Maybe not,” J.D. said. “Katie was the only one who could put McAllister at the Fredrickson house the night Jim and the woman died. If he let on to George that he knew Katie was alive, he, McAllister, would have to explain his presence at the time of Jim’s death.”

  “And,” said Jock, “there was always the chance that George Bass would try to protect Katie from McAllister.”

  “You might be right, Jock,” said J.D. “McAllister wouldn’t have known about the abuse. That’s not the kind of thing George would have told him. He might not have even known that George was not Katie’s birth father. In that case, McAllister couldn’t be sure that George wouldn’t do whatever he could to protect his daughter.”

  “J.D.,” I said, “did you ask Katie about the other two men who were raping her on a regular basis?”

  “Yes. The lawyer, Wayne Evans, was one and the other was Dwight Peters, the man Jock thought was Bonino.”

  “Damn,” said Jock. “I think I’d better talk to David Sims and see if I can get some more time with Peters. I guess he’s still in the Manatee County jail.”

  “He probably is,” said J.D., “but let’s take care of McAllister first. He’s the real threat.”

  “What about the U-166?” I asked.

  “I didn’t get to that yet,” said J.D.

  “Maybe McAllister can enlighten us,” said Jock.

  J.D. said, “I also want to know why King was interested in Bud Jamison, and we still don’t have a clue as to who killed old Mr. Goodlow.”

  J.D. stood up. “I need to check on Katie,” she said.