The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller))

by Tom Lowe

  “So where’d the damn crab come in?”

  “Remember his alibi about eating stone crab claws with his over-fifty-something pedophile buddy the night Alexandria was murdered?”

  “I read it, but I didn’t remember it from when you originally worked the case.”

  O’Brien said nothing.

  “Sean, you there?”

  “Yeah, Ron, I’m here. You were my partner, and you don’t remember that when it was brought up during the investigation.”

  “You know how many homicides I’ve worked? You think I can re—”

  “Of course not. When I drove by Joe’s Stone Crab, I had the idea for the crab. Figured it’d scare Russo so much he couldn’t remember how to lie, and I’d get it straight. Look, I got it on tape. I asked him if he killed Alexandria Cole and he responds, quote, ‘I killed the bitch.’ Ron, take the tape to the D.A. Maybe Stanley Rosen can get a court order for a stay to give us time to get an innocent man off.”

  Hamilton sighed. “The fifty-something pedophile, as you call him, Sergio Conti, is filing charges, too”

  “Conti says you assaulted him with a deadly weapon.”

  “The back of my hand. Ron, these freaks lied to the FBI, the DEA, and me.”

  “It’s not what I think. It’ll be messy, going to Stan Rosen, because of how you got the admission. And now there’s half dozen felony charges filed against you.”

  “You know better than anyone, there is no time to go though the system and keep Charlie Williams alive.”

  “I’m on your side, but you have to get the state attorney to hear the tape.”

  O’Brien was silent.

  Hamilton said, “If I get the recording from you, the D.A. will know where it came from and want to know why I didn’t take you into custody. I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you, but there’s not much I can do. I’m sorry, Sean.”

  “A man’s life is at stake.”

  “I have to go by the book. Get me something I can sink a big physical hook into, and I’ll reel it in. But right now, you’re fishing with dull hooks, and you’re the one getting caught.”

  “If I hold a news conference, somebody will hear the assholes confession.”

  “You already got more exposure than one man needs.”

  O’Brien looked up at the bar as the Today show broke for local stations to insert their newsbreaks.

  A young, petite news anchor said, “Miami Beach Police are combing the area for a man and a woman who allegedly tried to kill one of the owners of Club Oz, a nightclub on South Beach.

  Security cameras caught the couple on tape and they’ve been identified as Sean O’Brien, a former Miami homicide detective, and Elizabeth “Barbie” Beckman, a stripper employed by Club Paradise. The pair made their getaway after allegedly pulling a gun on owner, Jonathan Russo, and destroying thousands of dollars in club property. Russo was admitted to Jackson Memorial were he’s listed in fair condition.”

  O’Brien stood and looked around the restaurant at the few customers buried in newspaper or conversation. He saw his picture with Barbie on the front of the Miami Herald, the man reading the paper making his way through the sports section.

  O’Brien walked toward the door as the news anchor continued, “Police believe an earlier incident break-in was related to the shooting in Club Oz. O’Brien allegedly broke into the posh condo owned by film and music producer Sergio Conti, threatened Conti and tied him up. Conti and Russo were known business associates. Sean O’Brien is said to have abruptly quit a thirteen-year career with the Miami-Dade Police Department less than two years ago.”

  As O’Brien walked by the bar, the only customer sitting was an older man wearing a Jim Beam baseball cap and nursing a sweating bottle of Budweiser at 9:00 a.m. He glanced up as O’Brien stepped down the length of the bar and exited. The man said, “I’ll be damned. That feller on TV just walked out the door. Call the law, Jesse.”

  The waitress who’d served O’Brien approached. She watched O’Brien get in his car. “He’s a good tipper. Don’t call the po’lese. But, maybe there’s a big reward.”

  O’Brien’s car pulled away from the lot and she said, “Hand me the portable, Jesse.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  O’Brien glanced up in his rearview mirror when he pulled his car onto Highway A1A. The police cruiser remained parked in the Waffle House lot as O’Brien rounded a curve. He dialed Special Agent Lauren Mile’s cell number. “Things have intensified a little. Did you get your lab tech to come in this morning?”

  “Sean, I almost spit my orange juice out when I saw your picture in the Herald. And who was that woman—that girl? And yes, as a favor, the tech is in today.”

  “It’s a story longer than I have time to tell. As the lab tech works on Spelling’s letter, can someone edit an audio tape for me?”

  “What do you mean, edit?”

  “Shorten it. I’ve got a confession from Jonathan Russo on tape.”

  “Did you have to bust up part of his club to get it?”

  “Don’t believe everything you read in the news. Russo admits to killing Alexandria. I want to get the tape to the D.A. Stanley Rosen. If he hears it, he could ask a judge to issue a stay until an appellate court can consider it.”

  “Rosen will only go to bat if he’s sure you can deliver a point in his win column. Makes no sense for him to pinch hit for a public defender.”

  “But to execute an innocent man, especially if that man’s innocence might be proven after the state executes him, doesn’t look good for Rosen. He comes out smelling

  like a hero and preserves the judicial use of the death penalty at the same time. It puts two wins in his column.”

  “Eric, the lab tech, is also good with electronics. It’s fairly easy to edit the audio down and run a duplicate for you.”

  “While he’s at it, make a couple of dubs.”

  “Where are you?”

  “About twenty minutes from the FBI office.”

  “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

  O’Brien said nothing.

  “Sean, let’s meet in the parking lot, okay? About twenty minutes?”

  “I really appreciate what you’re doing. But right now I have to keep a fairly low profile. Let’s meet at South Pointe Park off Washington.”

  “Shall I bring a snack for a little picnic?”

  “I just had a breakfast that I’ll taste all day.”

  “Sean, be careful.”

  O’Brien looked at his watch.

  Forty-five hours remaining.

  #

  HE PULLED OFF A1A and began driving the secondary roads, O’Brien scanned the intersections as he approached them. His eyes took in the periphery, looking for police cruisers and unmarked cars. It was a surreal feeling for O’Brien to be watching for police. He drove just below the posted speed limits, checking his mirrors, ready to turn into a side road, an alley, or a fast food drive-through if he had to.

  His cell rang. O’Brien recognized Detective Dan Grant’s number. “Sean, we found Lyle Johnson’s truck.”

  “Where’s Johnson?”

  “Don’t know. FHP clocked two teenage boys doing a hundred in a forty-five off State Road 27. Said they found the truck with the keys in the ignition. Decided to take it for a joyride. Got a couple of glum faces when they were booked on grand theft auto.”

  “Where’d they find it?”

  “A place called Pioneer Village. Said they found the truck pulled off a dirt road parked under a tree. The village is one of those living history things. It’s a remote spot on the west side of Volusia County not too far from the river. County has a few old turn-of-the-century buildings, houses, barns, and whatnot set up there. Schools take kids out to the place for field trips. We have deputies combing the area.”

  “Thanks, Dan. Go back to the hospital security room. See if they have video of Lyle Johnson in the hospital using a cell phone during the time Sam Spelling was in recovery. Pull his phone records. See if he ma
de a call to Miami Beach.”

  “Where’re you?”

  “Miami Beach. Meeting with the FBI. We might have enough to get a stay for Charlie Williams.”

  “Make any more sense out of that scrawling the priest left in blood?”

  “Not yet.”

  Dan sighed. “Hope we can come up with an answer to the riddle soon. TruTv wants to do a whole damn exposé, calling it the ‘satanic ritual murder.’ The woman on CNN, the prosecutor-turned-TV-moderator…I forget her name—anyway, she

  interviewed the chief on live TV and asked him if the priest was believed to have been killed by a cult, some sort of sacrifice. How’s this shit get started, huh?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “People are driving by the church at all hours. They’ve had to hire security. Father Callahan’s funeral is planned for Monday. When are you back in town?”

  “Look at what we’re facing: Sam Spelling killed in his bed, Father Callahan killed in his church, and now you might find Lyle Johnson’s body. A possible third homicide in less than six hours.”

  “We got us a killer doing some serious overtime.”

  “Russo has admitted to killing Alexandria Cole, but after questioning him this time, I don’t believe he’s that good—three hits in six hours. It’s the mark of an extreme pro.”

  “You saying Russo brought in a hired gun?”

  “Yeah, and I might I know who it is.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  Deputy Sheriff Ray Boyd recognized the flies. He remembered them coming out of the woodwork when his grandfather killed hogs on the farm in Valdosta, Georgia. Grandpa called them blowflies and sucker flies. The blowflies had large red eyes and green bodies. The sucker flies had red eyes, yellow-gray striped bodies. Both drank blood. The horse flies drank blood, too. But they got it from biting live animals. These flies drank the blood from dead animals.

  Deputy Boyd left his patrol car at the entrance to Pioneer Village, walked along the perimeter, following the split-rail wooden fence as it loped around the edge of the property. He’d first spotted one of the flies sitting on the fence rail.

  Then there were more.

  Something was dead. Maybe a petting goat or one of the chickens he saw pecking in the small barnyard.

  In his eight months with the sheriff’s department, he’d never come in contact with a dead body. He stepped from the path and cut across toward the back of an old general store. He walked by the Burma Shave sign painted on the whitewashed cypress side. It wasn’t yet noon, and the hot Florida sun licked the back of his neck like a flame.

  A black crow called out and flew from a tall pine to the top rung on a tower supporting the windmill blade. The wind picked up and turned the blade a few times, the clatter sound not spooking the crow.

  Deputy Boyd could smell an odor. It wasn’t like any from the hog carcasses. He walked around the front of the store, toward the porch. He reached for his gun and his mouth at the same time. Don’t vomit, he told himself.

  The body was sitting in a rocking chair. Head slumped on a shoulder, like the neck was broken. Eyes and mouth open. Flies were darting in and out of the mouth, biting into the bluish, swollen tongue. More flies worked at a gaping wound in the head.

  The crow’s call sounded like a mocking laugh as it flew from the windmill.

  Deputy Boyd spun around, his gun pointing at darting butterflies and late morning shadows between the barn and the old church. He turned back to face the body. His hands shook reaching for the radio on his belt. Under the rocking chair, fluids pooled like dark oil. Boyd stepped back. He stepped away from the porch. Stepped away from the smell of death.

  He keyed the radio and said, “I got a ten-fifty-six…and it’s a bad one!”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  O’Brien parked two blocks away from the beach. He walked toward South Pointe Park. Two women on rollerblades, both wearing nothing but string bikinis, whipped around him laughing and skating north on Washington Avenue.

  He could see Lauren Miles sitting alone on one of the benches. O’Brien approached her and said, “I really appreciate you coming here.”

  “No problem. Got here just a few minutes ago. I was watching that photo shoot on the beach. Probably be on the cover on some magazine next month.” She looked toward the beach where a photographer with long white hair, open white shirt, and white cotton pants, hunched over a camera composing a shot of a model dressed in a pink bikini bottom. She had her arms folded over her bare breasts.

  O’Brien sat beside Lauren. “Here’s the tape. I’ve cued to his confession—to the question I asked, and to his answer.” He played the tape.

  Lauren said, “The whole thing is less than thirty seconds. No problem to get a couple of dubs for you. I just hope it’s something you can post in Rosen’s win column. It’s obvious to me that Russo sounded stressed. Maybe his life was threatened.”

  “Only his pinkie finger, the one with the diamond ring. When he made that statement, there was no gun visible. I had him handcuffed to the door. He’s an admitted pedophile who didn’t want me squeezing him. After our chat, he admitted what he did.”

  Lauren gazed at O’Brien a moment, she looked at a spot on the bench and said, “What’s wrong, Sean?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not happy with the confession. You know it. Might be enough to temporarily stop an execution, but not enough to get a conviction, right?”

  “Russo could have called in a pro, a hired gun to kill Spelling and Father Callahan. The hit man may have taken out a prison guard whom we believe overheard Spelling’s confession. The guard, Lyle Johnson, could have called Russo, tried to blackmail him, and was eliminated. Last night I saw a guy who looked like he may be the man who impersonated a priest and killed Sam Spelling. I saw a black-and-white security camera tape image of the imposter priest who walked into Spelling’s room. He was the last person to see Spelling alive. He has a beard, similar build. If he’s the same guy, he’s working for Russo. He was in Club Oz. Tried to draw down on me. I managed to be a little faster. Can you run his name through NAIS? It’s Carlos Salazar.”

  Lauren wrote down the name and O’Brien said, “Put another name on the list. It’s Judy Neilson. She was a high-fashion model here in Miami at the time of Alexandria Cole’s murder. She was Cole’s roommate.”

  “Something suspect about her after all these years?”

  “No, but in re-reading her interviews, she mentioned that Alexandria was sometimes called out, presumably to have sex with Russo. But now that I know Alexandria would have been way beyond his age limit. I want to question Judy again.”

  “You have remember all this was eleven years ago, Sean. People forget.”

  “Some things you never forget. I’d like to know if she’s still here in Miami.”

  “I’ll see if anything turns up.” Lauren paused, looked out toward the ocean and watched a sailboat. “Didn’t you have a sailboat once?”

  “A long time ago. Sold it.”

  “Why’d you get rid of it?”

  “It became a ship of ghosts for me. On my last sail, I emptied my wife’s ashes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks…now I’ve moved from sailing to a powerboat—a stinky, old diesel. Thirty-eight feet long. I bought it in an auction for ten cents on the dollar at a county sale of confiscated drug boats. I’ve been fixing it up with the intent of learning the charter fishing boat business. I have a great teacher. He’s Greek and has salt water in his blood.” O’Brien smiled.

  Lauren pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and turned back toward O’Brien. “Does the boat have a kitchen?”

  “Yes, it’s a galley.”

  “When this ends,” said Lauren, searching for the right words. “When it’s over, maybe we could spend some time on your stinky old boat, as you call it. Go fishing or something. I’m pretty good at cooking seafood.” She smiled and then bit her lower lip.

  “I’d like that,” said O’Brien.
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  Lauren smiled wide and looked above O’Brien’s shoulder to watch three brown pelicans sail over the tops of palm trees. She said, “I got to know you some during the hunt for Santana, maybe now we can get to know each other a little more.”

  “If we can save Charlie Williams, we’ll celebrate together.” O’Brien handed her the recorder, “Here’s the tape. How long before we might have something from Spelling’s letter?”

  “Give us a couple of hours.”

  “Okay, I’ll call your cell in two hours. One other thing…do you know where the D.A. lives…where’s Stanley Rosen’s house?”

  “Are you just going to drop by unannounced, at his home, on a weekend?”

  “I am.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Barbie Beckman heard the phone ringing in her dreams. Finally, she surrendered to the incessant noise, rolled over in her bed, and picked up the receiver. “Haalo…”

  “Barbie?”

  “Yeah...”

  “It’s Sue. Baby, you sound different. Have you seen the paper?”

  “Huh?”

  “The newspaper, sweetie, as in Miami Herald?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because your beautiful face is plastered on the front page and online, too.”

  “Ohmygod!”

  “And you’re running with some cute guy...looks like the actor Clive Owen. The paper says his name is Sean O’Brien.”

  “So he really isn’t Ken.”

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Barbie, you gonna turn your self in, or grab that guy and run like Bonnie and Clyde? I like it…Barbie and Clyde.”