The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller))

by Tom Lowe

  O’Brien looked at his watch. “In eighty-four hours, I could be the reason an innocent man dies.”

  EIGHT

  Dave Collins put his wine glass down on the table in the center of the cockpit. He rubbed the end of a finger across the stubble of his right cheek, his eyes filled with challenge. He said, “We’re talking about mistakes that have already happened, in the past tense. It sounds like yours is in the future, at least eighty-four hours in the future. So it’s not a mistake, at least not yet.”

  “It’s a horrific dominoes effect. The last one that falls is the execution of a potentially innocent man. The first one that started this was when I arrested the man eleven years ago. State’s giving him a lethal cocktail. I have to do something to stop it.”

  Collins inhaled through his nostrils like a vacuum cleaner, his big chest swelling, and as he exhaled, a slight whistle sound came from his pursed lips. “Step aboard. This sounds like some deep defecation my friend. I’ll shut up and listen while I’m preparing Grouper ‘Cronus style.’ You can begin at the beginning.”

  O’Brien lifted Max up, stepped into the cockpit, and followed Collins into the galley.

  #

  MAX SAT PATIENTLY, watching Collins’s every move as he prepared the food. He squeezed a cut lemon over a large piece of grouper while O’Brien was finishing the story. O’Brien left nothing out, telling him everything he could remember from the murder scene to the jury returning with a guilty-as-charged verdict.

  Collins closed the door to the small oven, sat on a barstool, swirled the syrah in his glass. “Okay, Sean…you believe this con, Sam Spelling, saw the killer, found the murder weapon, hid the knife, and blackmailed the killer eleven years ago?”

  “Considering the circumstances, a deathbed confession with a priest I know well and trust, the fact that somebody took a shot at Spelling…yeah, maybe.”

  “But, as you said, you don’t know if that shot was linked to Alexandria’s murder…especially after more than a decade. It’s probably to keep Spelling’s testimony out of the drug trial. What else? I sense something beyond the confession.”

  “I always wondered if I got the right guy.”

  “Why?”

  “The case was too easy. Some of the points didn’t quite add up. The case against Charlie Williams was clean-cut, maybe too clean.”

  Collins sipped his wine, swallowed thoughtfully. “Well, as you know, crimes of passion often are clean-cut in a dirty way. They usually don’t start out to be a murder. The argument escalates, and the killer goes crazy. He or she usually shoots more than they have to. In the event a knife is the weapon of choice, they’ll often repeatedly stab the victim beyond a single, fatal wound. The crime scenes are sloppy, but the trail leading to the killer is seldom sloppy, it’s damn obvious.”

  “And I think that was it. It was too obvious. Williams fit the profile, an agitated and jilted lover. A man desperate to have his true love back. He gets in a fight with her and kills her. With the exception of a bartender, who remembered serving him three

  fingers of straight bourbon near the time of Alexandria Cole’s murder, he has no alibi to fit the time-line. The forensic evidence leading to him was overwhelming.”

  O’Brien stood and walked around the boat’s salon. A small color TV was on in the corner. The sound was turned down. O’Brien said, “And that’s it!”

  “What do you mean, that’s it?”

  “That’s what bugged me then about the investigation. Charlie Williams is a farm boy from North Carolina. He may have killed and butchered a few hogs on the family farm, but now I don’t believe he killed Alexandria Cole. I think he was set up, the real killer is someone who knows forensics, a perp that’s so good he can make it look like Williams did it.”

  “If so, what do you do now?”

  “I meet Father Callahan. Get Spelling’s written statement, assuming he can write after coming out of recovery.”

  “And that’s assuming he makes it to recovery.”

  “I know. I’m waiting Father Callahan’s call. Then I call Miami PD and let them quietly pick up whoever it names in the statement. Then I call the governor’s office. He issues a stay of execution, and Charlie Williams is released. We put the real killer on trial, and I finish a bottle of Irish whiskey to try and forget why I ever got into law enforcement in the first place. If I did send the wrong man to prison…how the hell do I make that up to him?”

  Dave said nothing, his eyes filled with thought.

  O’Brien looked at the television. He saw a reporter standing in front of Baptist Hospital. “Where’s the sound?”

  “Second button on the right.”

  O’Brien turned up the sound in time to hear the reporter say, “And police still don’t know who took the fatal shot that killed Sam Spelling, a man whose testimony was, according to prosecutors, key in the high-profile bank robbery and cocaine trail of Spelling’s former partner, Larry Kirkman and three other men believed tied to a Miami crime family. Despite his undergoing three hours of surgery, Spelling died later in his hospital room due to complications from a rifle bullet that officials said hit him in the chest. And now police have a homicide on their hands with very few clues to go on at this time. This is Jeremy Levy, News Eleven.”

  O’Brien reached for his cell phone, quickly hitting buttons.

  “What’s the urgency, Sean? You calling that reporter’s boss, something he said?”

  “Yes, it was something he said. I’m not calling the television station, I’m calling Father Callahan.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Father Callahan was supposed to call me when Spelling went into recovery, or at least when he was coming out of it.”

  “But it looks like Spelling never recovered. It happens.”

  “But why hasn’t Callahan called? That worries me. The reporter said Spelling died after surgery in his hospital room. I want to make sure Spelling died from a gunshot wound.”

  NINE

  Detective Dan Grant, African-American, tall, broad shouldered, light skinned, held a television remote control. He pointed it toward a TV as another detective and two officers watched the newscasts from a doctors’ lounge in the hospital. Grant flipped through channels and saw the story on the other stations. He turned to the detective, a smaller wiry man, and said, “Let’s hope this buys us some extra time. We’ll keep an officer at Spelling’s door.”

  #

  SAM SPELLING’S RIGHT HAND trembled so much he didn’t know if he could finish the letter. An IV was taped to the back of his hand. He was glad he’d started writing in block letters. A kindly nurse, a few months shy of retirement, gave him a pad of lined paper, legal size. Spelling wanted to keep what he had to say to a single page. After surgery, after recovery, his chest felt like an iron vice was squeezing it. You brought me outta there alive, God. I’m gonna do my end. Get this done for Father John.

  As he started writing, he heard muffled talking outside his hospital room door and the sound of a chair sliding on the tile. The deputy who had stationed himself there was probably being replaced, he thought. Spelling looked at the bandage across his chest. In the center, near his heart, he could see a rust-colored spot the size of a quarter. He could smell the coppery odor of wet blood and adhesive.

  Pain shot from his chest to his jaw. His heart fluttered. The monitor on the left side of the bed sounded. Then his heart jumped into sync, a steady beat, and the machine

  silenced. Spelling’s mouth felt like sand was on his tongue. With his left hand cuffed to the bed, he used his right hand to hold the pad of paper in place on the tray as he wrote.

  The door opened. Spelling glanced up to see the guard, Lyle Johnson, returned. Before the door shut, he saw a deputy in the hall yawn and stretch.

  As Johnson stepped inside the small room he said, “D...O…C back on duty.” The guard held a large Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. “Kinda funny how the abbreviation for department of corrections is short for doctor.”

&nb
sp; Spelling said nothing. He continued writing.

  Johnson snorted and stepped to the window overlooking the parking lot. “Writing your last will and testament, huh? All your worldly possessions, something like that?”

  “Why don’t you get outta here?”

  “You cons are all the same. Still think you’re entitled to privacy in lock up.”

  “Look man, I’ve been shot. I had surgery. I’m chained to the fuckin’ bed. My heart is sick. I’m not goin’ anywhere. Just leave me be, okay?”

  “That’s called justice, what’s happened to you, Spelling.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “It’s open,” said the guard.

  Detective Dan Grant entered the room. He lifted the right side of his sports coat, displaying a gold badge clipped to his belt. “Dan Grant, homicide, Volusia County.”

  “I ain’t killed nobody, and I ain’t dead yet,” Spelling said.

  Grant smiled and stepped toward the bed. “No, you’re not. But for the sake of your protection, we’ll pretend that you are. Whoever took a shot at you made a great

  effort to kill you. A sniper with a lot of skill.” He looked at Johnson. “Would you excuse us?”

  The guard took his time securing the plastic lid on the Styrofoam cup, glanced at the paper under Spelling’s hand and left the room.

  Grant turned back to Spelling. “Who wants you dead?”

  Spelling sighed. “I guess I’ve made my share of enemies over the years. FBI finally caught my partner in the last bank job we pulled. He managed to stay hid ‘til he got sloppy. I’m sure you know I was being taken to the courthouse to testify against him. Maybe Larry or one of his scumbags hired the hit. He’s been in jail for more than eight months waiting trial.”

  “Maybe he had somebody on the outside to plan it, someone to arrange a hit.”

  “Possibility. We weren’t friends. Business partners, that’s all.”

  “He just managed to stay in business longer than you, right?”

  “Larry liked selling lots of dope, too.”

  “Who else might want you dead?”

  Spelling looked at the paper he’d finished writing. He was silent, his eyes flat. “Who knows? All I really know is there’s lots of evil all around us. It’s a tragedy for a man to go to his grave never knowing who he really is. We’re too stupid to get it right until it’s about all used up. I ain’t afraid to die. No sir, not now. Not after what I saw.”

  As the evening sunset broke through a patch of pewter clouds, light seemed to blossom into the room with an organic energy. Spelling looked toward the window and smiled. He saw a sparrow alight on the windowsill outside the room. “Bird’s hurt.”

  Grant looked at the bird. Spelling said, “Missing a foot. Little fella has to stand on one leg. He’s a peg leg, but he’s still got his wings.”

  Spelling signed his name on the bottom of the paper beneath his hands. He folded the paper and wrote on the outside in bold block letters:

  CONFIDENTIAL: FOR FATHER JOHN CALLAHAN

  Spelling held the paper. “Detective Grant, this is my ticket.”

  “Ticket?”

  “It’s my ticket to fly just like that little bird out there on the window. Don’t know if I’ll fly to heaven, but I’m hopin’this will earn me wings.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s something a priest asked me to write. It’s nothing about Larry’s trial. More like my own personal confession. Priest is comin’ to get it. Detective, would you be kind enough to drop this in that bag with my clothes. All I got left in this world is what’s in that brown bag.” Spelling smiled through crack lips. Blood, the color of dried tobacco juice, lined his lower lip. “But that’s all I really need.”

  Two nurses entered the room. One said, “We have to change bandages and give the patient medication. He must sleep now.”

  Detective Grant nodded. He took the piece of folded paper and dropped it in the bag. Spelling said, “Detective, anything happen to me…if I don’t make it. You go see Father John Callahan. And do it real quick.”

  As the nurses hovered around Spelling, attending his wound, he looked at the sparrow just beyond the window glass. The bird hopped on one foot to the ledge,

  stretched its wings, and flew toward the morning light in the eastern sky. Sam Spelling smiled.

  TEN

  Guard Lyle Johnson waited twenty minutes. Spelling ought to be sleeping about now, he thought. Johnson swallowed the last bit of cold coffee in the Styrofoam cup and walked into Sam Spelling’s room. Johnson’s Department of Corrections black shoes made a hollow sound as he stepped to the nightstand.

  The caffeine and Dexedrine put him on edge. His hands were moist, mind racing. A con getting better medical treatment than most taxpayers. All because he was shot. Nineteen years wearing a corrections officer uniform—a job that wouldn’t get a private hospital room. Maybe it’s ‘cause of the damn media—the shooting—all over the news. Maybe it was ‘cause nobody gives a shit about the nobodies.

  He peered into the brown sack, reached in, and lifted out the folded paper. Johnson looked over his shoulder at the closed door. He opened the paper and began reading, the further down the page he got, the wider his eyes became. Johnson let out a low whistle and mumbled, “Un-fuckin’ believable.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Lyle Johnson spun around. Father John Callahan stood at the door with his arms folded over his chest.

  “Nothing,” Johnson said, lowering his hand with the paper.

  “What do you have there?”

  “Nothing.”

  Father Callahan stepped closer. He could read his name on the yellow legal paper. He said, “As an officer with the state, I would think that security, confidentiality, would mean something to you. That’s marked for me—confidential.”

  “With all due respect preacher, no such thing as personal property for an inmate.”

  “You’re not holding personal property, you’re holding a private letter, a confession, addressed to me. I asked that man to write it. As a spiritual confession, it’s a sacred trust between God and one of his children.”

  Johnson said nothing. He made no effort to move.

  “Give it to me. That man, regardless of his past, is trying to make amends with our Lord. This could be his last statement—his last wish on earth. I won’t let you deny him, because right now God’s law supersedes your regulations.”

  Johnson’s eyelids lowered, a red patch forming on his bull neck. He slowly lifted the piece of paper. “Take it. I didn’t read it anyway.”

  Father Callahan took the paper and placed it between the pages of the Bible he carried. He glanced down at Spelling, who was in a deep drug-induced sleep, breathing slow, mechanical pulses thumping. Monitors filled the room with a bluish tint. He looked at Johnson’s nametag. “I’m praying for this man. He’s more than a prison number. His name’s Sam Spelling. And, Mr. Johnson, I will pray for you, too.”

  Johnson snorted, turned around and left the room. Father Callahan watched Spelling sleep a moment. He placed his hand on Spelling’s forehead and whispered, “Our heavenly Father, you kept this man well under surgery. You have a larger purpose for him, I pray, and I pray that he will live the rest of his life in service to you. Amen.”

  ELEVEN

  Lyle Johnson sat in a remote corner of the hospital snack bar and rewrote what he remembered reading in Sam Spelling’s letter. There was only one other person sitting at a table, a woman finishing a piece of pie. She got up and walked to a coffee dispenser less than twenty feet away. Johnson saw that she had left her book and cell phone on the table. He strolled by the table, lifted her phone, and exited the hospital.

  Outside, Johnson stepped into a memorial garden with blooming roses and a three-tiered water fountain that splashed into a concrete base dotted with coins. There were no patients or members of anyone’s family outside. He was alone. He sat on one of the benches and thought about what he would say. Not
often does an opportunity like this fall into a workingman’s hands. No way to live the rest of life—retiring on a state pension and have to work security for Walmart until you die.

  He would do it. He could do it. After all, a stupid con like Spelling had done it, and he’d kept the secret for years. Johnson lifted the stolen cell phone out of his pocket. He knew where the person worked. Spelling had spelled it all out. All he had to do was call—one call to change his life. Easy. Fuckin’ A. Then why was his hand shaking so much he thought he would drop the phone?

  Get a grip!

  #

  JOHNSON WAS SURPRISED. The voice on the phone was calm. Too calm. After he introduced himself, Johnson said, “You seem like a very reasonable man.”

  “You have the wrong person, Mr. Johnson.”

  Johnson nodded. “I knew you’d say that on the phone. So I’ll do most of the talking. I’m not greedy. I just figure, according to Sam Spelling’s note, if you gave him a hundred grand to keep quiet eleven years ago, your secret ought to be worth even a little more today. You know—inflation—cost of doin’ business.”

  “I’ll play along with a prank call for a moment, how’d you get my number?”

  “Spelling had your number, pal. In a lot of ways he had your number. Now I got it, but I can be forgetful, very forgetful, just ask my wife. Here’s the deal: you get the written statement I stole from Spelling’s room. I get two hundred grand to go away forever. The state executes Charlie Williams in a few days. A few weeks later, nobody remembers his name.”

  “Who else have you shared this prank—this alleged letter?”

  Johnson was silent a moment. “Nobody, except maybe that priest, Callahan. And I didn’t share shit with him. He’s the priest that heard Spelling make a deathbed confession. Exactly what he said, I don’t know. But this is a hardcore priest, one of ‘em guys who keep spilled crap between them and God. Nobody else. Don’t sweat it. I have the shit on paper, the statement in Spelling’s own handwriting.”