Fatal Decree

by H. Terrell Griffin

  She finally gave up, divorced me and left with nothing but her car. She’d found happiness with a widowed doctor in Atlanta and was raising his two daughters as her own when she died. I had never filled the hole left in my life when she moved out, and her death taught me that some things cannot be remedied; that sometimes a hole just gets bigger and bigger until it consumes you.

  J.D. had slipped up on me. We had become friends, and one day I realized that the hole in my life was being filled ever so slowly by this lovely cop. I was falling in love, but so far our relationship had remained platonic. I was afraid to push it, as I’d had almost no indication that she had feelings for me that were more than casual. There had been one or two moments when I thought something might break, that we might take that next step and become more than friends. But those moments always slipped away, and our connection had remained that of friends, nothing more.

  She reached our table, took a seat, and ordered an iced tea from the server. “We found the boat,” she said. “They beached it behind a condo at mid-key. The crime scene techs are working on it now, but it looks clean. No prints at all, nothing.”

  “Anything on the shooters?” asked Jock.

  “A condo owner saw a man beach the boat and walk away. Like he was just strolling the beach. A couple of hours later the boat was still there and was getting some pretty rough treatment. The wind had swung the stern around and the outboards’ lower units were banging on the beach. She called us.”

  “Just one man?” I asked.

  “Yes. He might have dropped his partner off someplace else. We’ve got our guys and some Bradenton Beach cops canvassing all the condos along our beach.”

  “That’ll take forever,” said Jock.

  “Not many of the snowbirds are here yet,” said J.D. “A lot of condos are empty. We’re talking to the managers of each complex and asking them to contact the owners who are in residence. That saves a lot of time.”

  “Was the boat stolen?” I asked.

  “The registration numbers said it belonged to some people who live on the bay over in Cortez. Nobody’s home, but the boat lift in back of the house was down in the water. A neighbor said the owners are visiting family in Chicago, but he noticed that the boat had been on the lift last night when he took his dog for a walk.”

  “And,” she continued, “there was a car in the lot across the street from The Seafood Shack that was stolen in Tampa yesterday. The techs are going over it now.”

  “Did we get an ID on the victim?” Jock asked.

  “She was a forty-five-year-old drug addict named Audrey McLain who worked as a prostitute to feed her habit. Bradenton P.D. knew her well. She worked the same few blocks for years. She was a confidential informant for one of the detectives, and as long as she provided them with good information on the drug dealers, they left her alone.”

  “Another random victim,” I said.

  “Probably,” said J.D.

  “Did the crime scene folks find anything at Leffis Key?” I asked.

  “A lot of shells from an Uzi, some shoe prints, but nothing that’ll help us nail the bastards.”

  “Is there anything about the murdered women that stands out? Similarities?” Jock asked.

  “They’re all a type,” she said. “White, middle aged, blonde, but those were the only similarities. They came from different backgrounds, had different jobs. We couldn’t find anything that would have connected the women in Miami to each other. We’re following up on that with Nell and Audrey. I doubt we’ll find a connection, but we have to cover the bases.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  J.D. nodded, her face tightening. “Audrey was killed with the same .22 pistol that killed Nell Alexander and those women in Miami.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The controller was pissed. His angry voice penetrated Jeff Worthington’s eardrum, accompanied by a low, regularly spaced tone from the cell phone he held. His battery was low. He hoped it wouldn’t expire before the controller finished his rant. He could be executed for such a breach of protocol.

  “What the fuck do you mean, you went on the mission? You dumb ass. Your job is to coordinate the idiots I’m saddled with, not get involved with them. What if you’d gotten caught? I set you up to be our goddamned lawyer, the man who can get into the jails and take care of any of these idiots dumb enough to get arrested. You can’t do that if you’re in jail yourself.”

  “I thought it’d be better for me to oversee the operation from close-up. You know, after the first fuckup.”

  “Qualman did okay,” said the controller. “He almost had the bitch detective, but he couldn’t have anticipated that a man with a gun would be in the parking lot. Did you ever find out who he was?”

  “The local newspaper said two men were involved. One of them is a lawyer on Longboat Key named Matt Royal. The other man was unidentified. That was it.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out about him. In the meantime, if you so much as think about going on another operation, your life will be over. Do you understand that?”

  “I thought—”

  “Your answer is ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir,’ nothing else,” the controller shouted. “You don’t take initiative, you don’t make plans. You do exactly as you’re told. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll be in touch.” The phone went dead.

  Worthington thought it was a good thing that the controller didn’t find out that he’d gone with Qualman, too. He, not Qualman, was the one who took the woman from the house on Longboat Key, killed her, and tied her body to the tree on Sister Key. How was he to know that old rope wouldn’t hold her when the tide started moving.

  Qualman had set up the meeting, but it was Jeff Worthington who was in charge. The controller had told him where to leave the bodies, but he couldn’t have known that he, Worthington, had to do the killing. It was not something he would delegate. His involvement had always been part of the plan. The plan drawn by the master himself.

  The only reason he’d told the controller about his involvement in the most recent fiasco was that he was sure the controller would read about the operation in the papers. He’d want to know who the second man was, and Worthington thought it prudent to get ahead of the bad news. It hadn’t gone as badly as it could have. The controller would get over being pissed, but Worthington had no intention of bowing out of the operations.

  He needed to make the kills. It gave him a godlike power, knowing that the person he killed had no inkling of what was happening. One second they were alive, and the next second they were dead. No warning. No time to get ready. Just life one moment and death the next. And he needed the excitement that came with the kills. He’d first tasted that rush when he killed the bouncer so many years ago at the club called The Place, and he’d dreamed about that moment during the fifteen years he’d spent as a guest of the Florida Department of Corrections. Once, when he was pretty sure he could get away with it, he’d killed a young druggie during his first few days in the system.

  Now he was building memories. Later, after the kills, while the bodies were cooling in some medical examiner’s morgue, he would stare at the photographs and remember each detail of the kill and feel the power it brought him. A power that most mortals never tasted or even understood. It was as simple as that. He needed to make the kills. But he was good for now. He could wait a few more days before it was time to start hunting. He breathed a sigh of relief and plugged his phone into its charger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  We finished lunch, and J.D. headed to Bradenton to the sheriff’s forensics lab. She was hoping to get some information on the stolen car found parked across the street from the Seafood Shack. It was so close to where the boat had been stolen, that it seemed reasonable to assume that whoever had taken the boat had also stolen the car.

  Jock and I went home and took Recess out on a completely unproductive fishing trip to a man-made reef near the north end
of Anna Maria Island. The sea was flat, the sun warm, and the beer cold. Even without fish, it was a fine way to spend a November afternoon.

  J.D. called to report that the car had been wiped clean. No fingerprints or anything else that would be of any use to law enforcement. She declined my dinner invitation, saying she was tired and wanted to go home, fix something simple for dinner, sip a glass of wine, and get back into the David Hagberg novel she was reading.

  Jock and I called it a day. That evening he got a call from Gene Alexander telling him that the medical examiner had released Nell’s body and the funeral would be the next day, a short graveside service in a cemetery out near I-75. Eleven o’clock in the morning. Gene was going to ride to the cemetery with Les Fulcher. Some of the other islanders would be there.

  I called J.D. to see if she wanted to join us. She did, and so did Sammy.

  We arrived at the cemetery shortly before the services were to begin. Like much of the developed interior of Florida, the cemetery was a flat expanse carved out of an old cattle ranch some years before. A stand of pine trees bordered the property, separating it from the cars passing by on the highway. The grave markers were those flat plaques that lay on the ground so that the lawn mowers would clear them. One had probably been ordered for Nell.

  It seemed a small ending for a life that had been lived well. But then, that’s the way funerals always are. A life stops and all that is left is the corporeal body that needs to be buried or cremated. The dead will be remembered for as long as their loved ones live, but then even the memory is buried. It all seemed so useless in this context, the first step of a child, the striving for success, love, children of their own, success or failure, happiness or despair, all gone in that blink of an eye when life leaves the body. In the end, our entire lives are only a short brushstroke on the cosmic canvas.

  Jock, J.D., and Sammy walked toward the little knot of people gathered at the gravesite. I lagged behind and then stopped. I watched J.D. as she moved across the close-cropped grass of the graveyard, her graceful movements so alive in this field of the dead. There is such a fine line between life and death and we never know when we’ll have to cross it. I hoped it wouldn’t be soon.

  “Matt,” J.D. said, “are you coming?” She was a few feet in front of me, looking back, wondering, I guess, why I had stopped. Jock and Sammy had moved on.

  I wrenched myself back to reality. Only a couple of seconds had elapsed as I stood rooted. I looked at her, thinking that life does go on and as long as we are breathing, happiness is within reach. Maybe she was my happiness. I smiled. “Coming,” I said.

  The service was short and the crowd dispersed quickly. We paid our condolences to Gene and drove back to the key. J.D. told us that the forensic people had finished examining the go-fast boat that was assumed to be the one used by the Leffis Key killers. It had been wiped clean, but one of the technicians found a single fingerprint on a stern cleat. It looked as if one of the men had touched the cleat while he was securing a line.

  “Were you able to match it?” Jock asked.

  “Yes. To a man named Barry Steiffel. He was on parole, released a month ago from Glades Correctional.”

  “The same place where Qualman served time,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said J.D.

  “Do we know where Steiffel is now?” asked Jock.

  “No,” said J.D. “He never checked in with his parole officer in Miami.”

  “Is that where he’s from?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said J.D. “He went up for armed robbery in Miami Beach. Did eight years of a ten-year sentence.”

  “Did you arrest him?” I asked.

  “No. Miami Beach is a different jurisdiction. I checked with Miami-Dade, just to be sure I’d never had anything to do with him. As far as we can tell, Steiffel and I never crossed paths.”

  “The lady who saw the man get off the boat on the beach said he was alone,” I said. “There were definitely two leaving Leffis Key on that boat. What happened to the other guy?”

  “Good question,” said J.D. “Maybe one of them got off farther up the beach.”

  “Maybe he’ll show up,” Jock said. “At least we have a name now.”

  “You want to join us for lunch, J.D.?” I asked.

  “Wish I could,” she said, “but I’ve got to finish up some paperwork. That’s the worse part of this job.”

  “Sammy’s got to work, but Logan’s going with us to Tommy Bahama’s restaurant on the Circle tonight. You want to join us?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll be on the Circle, but I’m meeting an old friend from Miami for dinner and drinks at Lynches Pub.”

  We dropped her at the police station and took Sammy a little farther south to Pattigeorge’s. “I wonder about the friend from Miami,” I said as Jock and I drove north toward the village.

  “Slow down, podna. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re probably wrong.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “We could stop by Lynches for drinks after dinner.”

  “Yeah. That wouldn’t be at all obvious. You’re not very good at this, are you?”

  “Hey,” he said, “I’m not the one in love.”

  “I don’t know whether I am or not. It’s confusing.”

  “Geez. We sound like we’re still in high school.”

  And I guess we did. But if I had known what the night would bring, I would have turned around and taken J.D. home with me. Even if I had to kidnap her to do it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  During her early years in Miami, J.D. had become friends with a young prosecutor named Deanna Bichler. While J.D. moved up the ranks of the Miami-Dade Police Department, Deanna had left the state attorney’s office and moved into private practice with a Miami law firm. Over the years, her brilliance and penchant for hard work had made her one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the state. She was now almost forty years old, but seemed forever young. She had not aged since her mid-twenties, and, in the parlance of the young men who lusted after her, she was “hot.” She was wearing her lawyer uniform, gray suit, white blouse, low-heeled pumps. Her dark hair was fixed in a bun at the nape of her neck, a small diamond stud in each earlobe, a single gold strand necklace around her neck.

  J.D. and Deanna had been bridesmaids in each other’s weddings, but unlike J.D.’s disastrous stab at matrimony, Deanna’s had prospered. She now had three children and a husband who practiced civil law in another large Miami firm. She was happy, but missed the camaraderie she and J.D. had enjoyed over the fifteen years they had known each other. Telephone calls and Facebook just weren’t the same as sharing a drink and some laughs in South Beach.

  Deanna had spent the day in federal court in Tampa doing battle with the U.S. Attorney’s Office on a fraud case. There had been several motions to be heard, and they hadn’t finished by the time the judge wanted to call it a day.

  Her client was wealthy and had made his money with a sophisticated Medicare scam that milked the taxpayers for millions of dollars. She had called J.D. on Sunday and told her that she would be in Tampa and, if J.D. had time for dinner, she would drive down and meet her. She had to be back in court early the next day and would drive back to her hotel in Tampa after dinner. They had agreed to meet at Lynches Pub on St. Armands Circle.

  J.D. parked in back of the pub, in a large parking lot that accommodated visitors to the shops and restaurants that lined the Circle. She had what the Lynch sisters, Ethna and Chris, who owned the place, called “back-door privileges.” It was a perk that was given only to the locals who were friends of “the girls,” as they were universally called by the islanders.

  She came in through the kitchen, and saw Deanna sitting at a small table in the front of the narrow space that housed the pub. She smiled as she noticed how Deanna was dressed. She felt decidedly unprofessional in white Capri pants, a pale-green blouse, and sandals, her hair in a pony-tail. But then, that was the island uniform. They hugged, ordered drinks,
and caught up with all the gossip from Miami. “So,” J.D. said, “sounds like a big case in Tampa.”

  “Yeah. My client is guilty as sin, but there’s a lot of money involved, so the U.S. Attorney himself is handling it. Big Daddy.”

  “Big Daddy?”

  Deanna smiled. “Yes, that’s what he’s called. He’s pretty much a big teddy bear, but he gives no quarter in the courtroom.”

  “David Parrish?” asked J.D.

  “You know him?”

  “A friend of a friend. I actually met him a couple of days ago.”

  “Small world. How does your friend know him?”

  “They were classmates in law school.”

  Deanna smiled. “So, your friend is a lawyer. Male or female?”

  “Most definitely male.”

  “I see. Might he be more than just a friend?”

  “It’s complicated,” said J.D.

  “I thrive on complications. Give it up, old friend. How long have you been sleeping with him?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “I told you it was complicated.”

  Deanna made a “come on” gesture with her fingers.

  “Okay,” said J.D. “I can’t sort it all out. He’s the most intriguing man I’ve ever met. He’s a retired trial lawyer who insists his only goal in life is to be a beach bum.”

  “Ah, an older man.”

  “Not at all. He retired early. Got disgusted with the practice of law. Says it turned into a business instead of a profession.”

  “I think he knows whereof he speaks.”

  J.D. laughed. “Yeah.”

  “Did he practice here?”

  “Orlando.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Matt Royal.”

  Deanna sat back. “He was big-time.”

  “You know him?”

  “Only by reputation. Never met him. But he was at the top of his game when he just up and quit. Somebody told me he’d moved to an island. I didn’t know it was this one.”