The Big Lie

by James Grippando

  “The name ‘parabellum’ comes from Latin,” said Charlotte. “Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you seek peace, prepare for war.”

  “So, whoever shattered your window with that magazine is telling you—”

  “It’s war,” said Charlotte, finishing the thought for him.

  Police sirens blared in the distance. Jack hoped that the message was not intended to be taken literally, but this was a step beyond random threats from a crowd of demonstrators. It was definitely time to put his client-protection plan into action.

  “Let me ask you something,” said Jack.

  “What?”

  “How long would it take you to pack a suitcase?”

  Chapter 19

  It seemed counterintuitive, but Jack and Charlotte felt safer when their plane landed in Miami.

  Charlotte had resisted leaving her home, telling Jack that, despite the allusion to war, “parabellum” ammunition wasn’t actually military grade, which meant that whoever had scratched the message on the magazine and smashed her window didn’t know much about guns or was being way too clever. Either way, Jack figured, Charlotte could still end up dead.

  “Your friend is okay with me staying at his place?” she asked.

  “Theo will be more than okay with you staying at his place,” said Jack. “You’ll be in the flat above his bar. Most people don’t even know it exists. His uncle Cy used to live there.”

  “Cy, as in Cy’s Place?”

  “The one and only,” said Jack.

  It was after dark when they reached Coconut Grove. Once upon a time, an evening in the Grove would have meant streets and sidewalks packed with twenty-somethings and teens who pretended to be twenty-something cruising up and down Main Highway. Those days were gone. Now it was largely tourists in search of what the Grove once was, some of whom could be found standing in front of razed buildings, double-checking their outdated edition of Fodor’s that had led them to another restaurant turned construction site. It was Theo’s loyal following that kept Cy’s Place alive—that, and the fact that finding another true jazz club in Miami was like trying to find the Copacabana in Fairbanks.

  Jack and Charlotte parked and walked straight to the rear entrance. Theo met them by the outdoor stairwell in the alley. Jack made the introduction and Theo led them up to the apartment, with not so much as an arched eyebrow from Theo to acknowledge that Charlotte was an attractive brunette, around his age, and close enough to his type. It was very unlike Theo, which told Jack that he was still pining.

  “My uncle Cy lived here for years, but the stairs got to be too much for him. Only one other person has stayed here.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Charlotte.

  Oh, God, here it comes, thought Jack. Julia Rodriguez, the most perfect woman in the world, who was definitely THE ONE, but I was too stupid to realize it, and now she’s gone back to El Salvador, and my life is ruined.

  “A friend of mine,” said Theo.

  Theo opened the door and stepped aside to let Jack and Charlotte enter. Jack smiled at his friend on his way inside. “Good answer,” said Jack.

  “I’m working at it,” said Theo.

  Cy’s Place occupied one of the oldest addresses in Coconut Grove, a two-story brick structure that had “great bones” for a jazz club. The one-bedroom hovel directly above the club came with a prime view of the Dumpsters in the alley but was not without charm. Theo offered a quick tour of the old photos and jazz memorabilia that his uncle had left behind. The famous nightclubs of Overtown, where Cy used to play with the likes of Sam Cooke in his heyday, were a part of music history that was unknown even to most Miamians. Charlotte seemed interested, but once he got started, Theo could brag on his uncle all night long, and Jack had a lot of ground to cover with his client before they returned to Tallahassee for Monday’s hearing.

  “Dude, we only got till Sunday night,” said Jack.

  “Sorry,” said Theo, then he smiled at Charlotte. “Next time.”

  “Sure. Next time,” said Charlotte.

  “Did you get everything on my list?” asked Jack.

  Theo brought the paper bag from the kitchen counter, placed it on the table, and then began to empty it, starting with a phone.

  “One disposable cell,” he said.

  They’d left Charlotte’s smartphone in Tallahassee in case someone was tracking her by GPS. “Disposables aren’t traceable,” Jack told her. “But I still suggest you keep phone calls to a minimum.”

  “Understood,” said Charlotte.

  Theo removed a few other essentials from the bag and then laid out the last two items. The penultimate, a can of Mace, was one Jack had requested. The last was not.

  “One semi-automatic pistol,” said Theo. “Nine millimeter.”

  “You bought a gun?” said Jack.

  “No. This one belongs to Uncle Cy. He wouldn’t sleep up here without one, and neither would I. Especially if I had sixty-five million MacLeod voters out to kill me.”

  “There aren’t sixty-five million people trying to kill her.”

  “Sixty-five million suspects,” said Theo.

  “Thanks,” said Jack. “We weren’t worried enough.”

  “Thank you, Theo,” said Charlotte. She checked the gun. Theo handed her the magazine separately, and she loaded it.

  “The kitchen is open till midnight,” said Theo. “Just let me know if you get hungry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be tending bar all night. Happy to mix your favorite cocktail if you get bored.”

  Jack was happy to see Theo climbing his way out of the Julia Rodriguez pit of misery, but he needed to lay down some rules. “No going down to the bar. The point of this trip is for Charlotte to keep a low profile.”

  “Got it,” said Theo.

  “We’ll add that to the ‘next time’ list,” said Charlotte.

  She and Jack thanked him, and Theo closed the door on the way out.

  “Go ahead and unpack, and take thirty minutes to unwind,” Jack said. “We have a lot to cover between now and Monday, so I’d like to get in a couple of hours of prep time tonight.”

  “Honestly, if I take time to myself, I’ll check out mentally. Let’s just start now and be done for the night.”

  “Fine by me,” said Jack. They pulled up chairs at the table, facing each other. Jack had his laptop open to take notes.

  “Where do you want to start?” asked Charlotte.

  “I’m sure MacLeod will have an army of investigators out all weekend digging up dirt. You and I need to go through everything you’ve ever done that could arguably bear on the question of your ‘fitness’ to be an elector.”

  “Do high school and college matter?”

  Does a Supreme Court justice nominee “like beer”? Jack thought it, but he didn’t say it. “Yes. High school and college matter.”

  “Well, if you want to go back that far, I can think of a few things.”

  “Let’s hear them.”

  Charlotte shifted uncomfortably. “Not to alarm you, but you did say you wanted to go only a couple of hours tonight.”

  Jack paused but tried not to show his surprise. “That’s fine. If we run over, we run over.”

  “All right, then,” said Charlotte. And then she began.

  Just around the bend from Cy’s Place, closer to the Coconut Grove Marina, was the Mutiny Hotel. At the peak of the Grove’s party reputation of the 1970s and 1980s, the hotel and its famous Mutiny Club once catered to everyone from the Bee Gees to the bad boys of the unbeatable Miami Hurricanes football team. In the heyday of the Cocaine Cowboys, it wasn’t unusual for guests to pay cash and use an alias at check-in. Miami had changed since then. Somewhat.

  “I’ll need a credit card for incidentals,” said the clerk behind the registration desk.

  A couple of hundred-dollar bills slid across the countertop. “All I have is cash.”

  The clerk hesitated. “What’s your name?”

  “Ramos. Manny Ramos
.”

  Ramos was an alias; Manny was a nickname.

  The clerk took the money. “In the old days, Manny, no credit card meant a thousand-dollar security deposit for damages.”

  “I’m a quiet guest.”

  “Yeah, you look it. Need any help with your bag?”

  “No, I got it.”

  Manny was no cheapskate, but tipping the bellman five bucks to wheel a small carry-on from the reception desk to the elevator seemed a bit ridiculous. The bag wasn’t even full. Just a change of clothes. A camouflage jacket. And a baseball cap. Nothing more was needed. Charlotte Holmes had to be back in Tallahassee by Monday, which meant Manny did, too.

  The elevator opened on the fifth floor. As requested, the room was on the west side of the building and had a balcony. The “Grove” view was less desirable than the east-facing water view, but this was no vacation. Manny needed to see all the way to Cy’s Place.

  Following Charlotte to Miami was a calculated risk. Media reports of Charlotte’s broken kitchen window had traveled faster than a speeding bullet, so to speak. Initial reports had tagged the perpetrator as a political extremist, which put the number of potential suspects somewhere in the millions. Manny had no idea who it was, but this much was certain: police would be on even higher alert to spot anyone who might be following Florida’s most famous elector. For Manny, the question was whether Charlotte had even noticed that she was being followed by someone wearing a camouflage jacket. The whole point of the jacket, after all, was to be noticed, not to blend in. The fact that the media had made no mention of it, however, had Manny thinking that Charlotte had not noticed. Or that she’d noticed and not told anyone. The latter would have been more like the Charlotte that Manny remembered.

  I remember well.

  Not all the memories were pleasant. One, in particular, was gnawing at Manny. As threats against Charlotte and other electors escalated, so increased the chance that reporters might do a deep dive to see if Charlotte had been in danger before. They might search old newspapers or other public documents. They might even search for court records. A search like that used to require a trip to the courthouse. Now all it took was a cell phone with Internet access.

  Curious, Manny Googled “Escambia County circuit court records.” Instantly, the clerk of the court’s smiling face appeared on Manny’s cell phone. Below the clerk’s photo was a link to the electronic database for the westernmost county in the Florida Panhandle, which included Pensacola. Manny typed “Holmes” in the search box. A list of cases came up, some of them dating back twenty years or more. Only one pertained to Charlotte: Holmes v. Lopez.

  Lopez was Manny’s real surname.

  Manny scrolled down to see what more was available to the public. The year included in the docket number indicated that the case was almost fifteen years old. Case status: closed. Assigned judge: Gibson. It was very basic information, none of which would be much use to an investigative reporter, or anyone else. An examination of the actual court filings—pleadings, motions, court orders, and the like—was the only way to determine what the case had been about. Manny clicked on the docket link with trepidation, which brought welcome news.

  “Docket sealed,” the message read. “Docket entries available only upon court order.”

  Sealed. No record search, no matter how thorough, would turn up the petition filed by Charlotte’s attorney. No one would find the order entered by the judge. No one would see the language telling Manny to stay at least five hundred feet from Charlotte Holmes.

  Sealed. It was music to Manny’s ears. Even if someone was diligent enough to search the archives of all sixty-seven of Florida’s counties one by one, and even if they found the innocuous reference to an old case involving Charlotte Holmes, they’d get nothing.

  Manny put the phone away, unzipped the overnight bag, and unpacked one camo jacket and one baseball cap.

  Chapter 20

  It was almost nine o’clock when Charlotte said good night to Jack. Their meeting could have gone longer, but Jack wanted to get home and see his family. They agreed to pick up where she’d left off in the morning.

  It was nice of Theo to offer her a place to stay, but the apartment was frankly a little stuffy, and the thought of being cooped up like a prisoner until morning held no appeal. Charlotte showered, changed clothes, and was sitting in front of the bureau, combing her hair in the mirror, when she noticed the homemade card tucked into the frame. She laid her brush aside and opened it.

  “Please, please, please come visit us!” the message read. The handwriting had the distinctive markings of a teenage girl, complete with big, loopy letters and the “i” dotted with a heart. A drawing on the inside panel also had an adolescent flair. It was a map of Florida and Central America separated by the blue-green expanse of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. A stick-figure man, presumably Theo, was standing in Miami. A woman and girl were in El Salvador. A jet was streaming southwest over Cuba and the Caribbean. “Fly Cheapo Airline!” the message continued. “Miss you already. Luv, Beatriz.”

  Charlotte returned the card to its place on the mirror. Her conversation with Jack hadn’t been all business, and in the back-and-forth she’d learned more about him than Jack probably realized. Jack had mentioned that the “friend” who used to live in Cy’s apartment was Theo’s old girlfriend from El Salvador, Julia, whose teenage daughter had grown fond of Theo. Fond enough to want him to visit them in El Salvador.

  It made Theo even more interesting to her.

  Charlotte checked her makeup in the mirror and went to the kitchen. There was a bottle of tequila on the counter with two shot glasses. She didn’t normally drink alone, but nothing about the previous two weeks was normal. She filled them both, belted one back, and enjoyed the head rush. It was quality tequila, not the rotgut she used to drink in those wild college days that her lawyer had just grilled her about. She downed the second shot and started downstairs, locking the door behind her.

  The outdoor stairway in the alley ended just beyond the Dumpster, at the club’s rear entrance. Charlotte heard a live band through the closed door. She opened it, and the music drew her down a narrow, dark hallway into the club. The old photographs of Little Harlem upstairs had put her in the proper frame of mind, and the tequila buzz made her even more receptive to the vibe of a jazz-loving crowd that oozed through Cy’s Place. Old wood floors that creaked beneath her footfalls, redbrick walls, and period posters from jazz performances of another era made Charlotte think more of Harlem than Miami. Art Nouveau chandeliers cast just the right mood lighting. Crowded café tables fronted a small stage for live music. Theo was working both sides of the big U-shaped bar. Several barstools were open. She chose one on the far side of the bar. She recalled an old movie about a mobster who always took a seat from which he could see the door, just in case somebody came gunning for him. The strategy seemed to make sense in this life of hers that was making no sense.

  Theo spotted her, smiled, and came over. “You escaped,” he said.

  “For a little while. Got any tequila?”

  “Do I have any tequila,” he said with a devilish smile. He poured her a shot. “You don’t need any training wheels with that.”

  It was a line she’d heard from bartenders even before she was old enough to drink, but Charlotte played along. “Training wheels?”

  “Lemon and salt,” said Theo. “It’s añejo. So smooth you can sip it if you want.”

  She smiled like a tequila virgin, no mention of the head start upstairs. But she took his advice and sipped.

  “Does Jack know you’re out and about?” he asked.

  “No. And don’t tell him. I appreciate all he’s doing to keep me safe, but he’s got me locked up like a prisoner.”

  Theo put a napkin under her shot glass. “Jack’s at his best getting people out of jail.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Charlotte didn’t want to come off as nosy, but Jack had painted a pretty interesting picture of his friend’s past, and th
is seemed like an opening. “Jack told me how you met.”

  “Yeah? What’d he tell you?”

  “That you were on death row.”

  Theo poured a couple of drafts from the tap and placed them on a tray for the waitress, then turned back to Charlotte. “That was a very long time ago.”

  “How long?”

  “Let me put it this way,” said Theo. “You could argue that a good number of people have landed on death row because they didn’t finish high school. I think I’m the only one who didn’t finish high school because he was on death row.”

  Charlotte felt his pain. To a point. “Did you kill a guy?”

  “Not that guy.”

  “You killed someone else?”

  Theo glanced toward the band, half laughing, then looked back at Charlotte. “You ever killed anybody?”

  “I asked you first.”

  Theo laughed, but Charlotte didn’t. Then she blinked. “Sorry,” she said. “My lawyer just spent three hours picking apart every ‘unfit’ thing I’ve ever done in my life. I didn’t mean to turn the tables on his best friend.”

  “No problem.”

  Charlotte drank more tequila, two sips. “So, did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Kill someone else?”

  Theo poured himself a glass of water. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “I’ve been in some ‘him or me’ situations. I’ll leave it at that.”

  “Do you carry?”

  “Nothing that a shot of penicillin won’t clear up.”

  “I meant concealed carry, wise guy.”

  “Never in the bar,” said Theo. “You didn’t bring Uncle Cy’s gun down here with you, did you? My club is a gun-free zone.”

  “I figured, so I left it upstairs,” said Charlotte. “But what do you do if things get out of hand?”

  “I got Carl.”

  “Who’s Carl?”

  Theo reached below for a baseball bat and placed it on top of the bar. “Yastrzemski.”

  Charlotte checked the barrel of the bat. The autograph looked like alphabet soup, but she took Theo’s word for it that it spelled Yastrzemski. “Never heard of him.”