The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller))

by Tom Lowe

  #

  THE SWAT TEAM surrounded the green Jeep in the parking lot. The teenager sat in his Jeep, rocking to his loud music, and talking to his girlfriend on the phone.

  “Put your hands in the wheel! Do it now!” shouted the police command over the bullhorn.

  The teenager swallowed nervously and said to his girlfriend, “Shit! I’m surrounded by cops! They’re pointing guns at me! Call my mom!”

  #

  O’BRIEN LEFT THE CAR WASH and tore out of the lot toward Collins Avenue. His cell rang. It was Detective Ron Hamilton. “Sean, I’ve heard the noise on the radio. You have to turn yourself in! It can all be explained.”

  “You know as well as I do that it can’t be explained quickly. I’d be held, then go for a bond hearing. In the meantime, a good chunk of time that Charlie Williams has left on the planet is gone. For his sake, I can’t afford to come in.”

  “You can’t afford not to!”

  “Volusia SO found a body, the prison guard. Name’s Lyle Johnson. He was assigned to watch Sam Spelling. Whoever killed Spelling and Callahan, killed Johnson.”

  “You think it’s Russo?”

  “I think it’s one of his hired guns.”

  “We found that girl you were with at Club Oz.”

  “Is she okay?” O’Brien almost knew what Dave was about to tell him.

  “One of our detectives went over to Barbie Beckman’s house. First time, she wouldn’t come to the door. Second time, we entered with a warrant. Found her on the bathroom floor.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “Barely. She’s at Jackson Memorial. And she’s in bad shape.”

  SIXTY-TWO

  O’Brien maneuvered the Jeep around double-parked cars at Jackson Memorial Hospital, found a place at the farthest end of an employee parking lot to park. He pulled on a baseball cap and sunglasses before he got out of the Jeep.

  #

  O’BRIEN LIGHTLY KNOCKED on the door to room 215. There was no answer. He opened the door. The name on the door said Elizabeth Barbie Beckman, but the woman in the bed looked like a mummy. Her face had been so badly beaten the swelling had forced her eyes closed. The lumps were the color and shape of dark plums. A knot on her head was the size of a lemon. IVs ran into both arms. One arm was in a cast. He saw dried blood in her left ear canal.

  O’Brien stepped to the bed. The woman’s breathing was quick and shallow. He looked at the monitors. Her heart rate was fast, even in her sleep. She made small whimpering sounds, like a puppy might utter. Her body jerked as if she was trying to shake out of a bad dream. O’Brien leaned down, his lips near one of her ears. “Barbie, this is Sean O’Brien. Can you hear me?”

  There was no movement. No flutter of the eyes. Nothing. O’Brien thought she may be in a coma. He said, “Barbie, this is Ken, how are you feeling?”

  A soft moan, the words trying to rise to the surface. She managed to open her right eye. The entire white of her eye was dark red, the look of a moldy strawberry.

  “Ken,” she mumbled. “You’re here…”

  “Barbie, who did this to you?”

  “He hurt me so bad,” she whispered. Her eyes filled with water, the tears spilling out of the swollen corners and soaking into the gauze.

  “Who did it?”

  “They’ll kill you…”

  “Barbie, who hurt you?”

  She sobbed and said in a raspy whisper, “Carlos Salazar.”

  “Russo’s guy—”

  “Please, don’t…they’re part of the mob…soldiers…life means nothing to them.”

  O’Brien held one of her hands, careful not to touch the IV. “Listen to me, no man has the right to do this to you. Do you understand?”

  “I’m so scared…he hurt me so...”

  O’Brien used his thumb to wipe away the tears from her right eye. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to help you.”

  She tried to smile. Butterfly stitches in her swollen lips prevented it. She managed to say, “In my English lit class I read about poetic justice…you know like some Shakespearean play where good beats evil.”

  O’Brien smiled. Barbie continued, “Kind of poetic justice that I’m in the same hospital where they brought Jonathan Russo. I read in the paper that they brought him here. You, sort of, put him in the hospital. And one of his guys did the same to me. I don’t understand it though, if good beats evil, then why am I here?”

  “It’s not over, yet.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  As O’Brien left Barbie’s room, he picked up a clipboard on the nightstand. When the elevator doors opened to the eleventh floor, O’Brien stepped out. He casually looked right and left. He could see a man dressed in a tropical shirt near the end of the hall. O’Brien walked in that direction. He paused at every other door, glanced at the clipboard, and pretended to look at the patient’s name on the door.

  A few feet from room 1103, the man in the tropical shirt looked out a window at the parking lot. O’Brien approached him and said, “Is Mr. Russo resting comfortably?”

  Tropical shirt’s face was so bloated his eyes squinted. His breathing sounded labored. O’Brien could smell the stink of dried sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke on the man’s clothes. He looked at O’Brien suspiciously and said, “He’d be better if you people would let him sleep. You don’t look like no doctor. What kind of doctor are you?”

  “Head doctor.”

  “Shrink?”

  O’Brien smiled, looked down at the clipboard for a second and said, “No, I aim for the head.” He hit the man squarely in the jaw, knocking him out cold. O’Brien dragged the man into a janitor’s closet. Then he opened the door to Russo’s room.

  “O’Brien! How’d you get in here?”

  “Your hall monitor is resting comfortably next to a mop. Probably wake up with a nasty headache, though.”

  Russo reached for the nurse’s call button. O’Brien was faster, grabbing the remote control and pulling it off the wall.

  Russo tried to sit up in bed. The heart monitor raced. “What do you want?”

  “Why’d you sic your dogs on Barbie?”

  “That fuckin’ whore, who gives a shit.” His voice was thick with disgust.

  O’Brien lifted his Glock, holding it by the barrel, the butt of the gun pointed toward Russo’s face. “I give a shit. This is where your goon hit Barbie. It’s where I’ll bein with you. And guess what, Russo, if she slips in a coma or dies…you do too.”

  Russo pushed himself as far back in the bed as he could get, the electrodes popping off his chest. “Please, O’Brien…I’m a sick man.”

  “Why’d you have the girl beaten?”

  “Wanted to make sure she knew not to show up as a witness when we took your ass to trial. Figured we could get you five to seven and it’d send a clear signal to others—cops, PI’s and anyone who thought they could shake us down or was thinkin’ they could come in our place, trash it up and threaten us.”

  “Who’s us?’

  “Me and Sergio Conti.”

  “I believe you hired Carlos Salazar to hurt the girl, maybe kill her. Just like you hired him to kill three people, you wanted to make damn sure Spelling’s letter kept out of circulation. You wanted to make sure Charlie William’s takes a hot needle. And if you put me out of the picture, that pretty much guaranteed it. So now you beat up Barbie because she was with me in you club, maybe send me a message, maybe scare me.”

  Russo’s eyes looked toward the door for less than a half second. It was long enough for O’Brien to know someone had entered the room

  O’Brien dropped to the floor, rolled, and came up with his Glock pointed in the man’s face. “Drop it!”

  The man, his jaw swollen, his right eye watering, held his pistol in front of him. It was at least fifteen degrees to the right of O’Brien.

  “Thought you’d sleep longer,” said O’Brien. “You’ve got a choice…you can take a chance and try to point that squarely at me and get off a shot before I do. O
r you can set the gun down on the floor, kick it to me, and walk to the back of the room.”

  “Shoot him!” ordered Russo.

  The man looked at Russo and then looked at O’Brien without turning his head. He said, “He’s got the drop on me!”

  “You fuckin’ pussy!”

  The man slowly lowered the pistol to the floor.

  “Kick it this way!” O’Brien ordered.

  The man kicked the gun. O’Brien picked it up. “I bet that if I have a ballistics test run on this, I’m wagering that this gun, or one very close to it, killed Father Callahan. What I don’t know is who fired the killing bullet…you…or Carlos Salazar.”

  “Wasn’t me! Tell him Mr. Russo!”

  “I don’t know, pal,” said O’Brien. “You were so very eager to take a shot at me. You could very well be the hit man responsible for three murders in the last three days. The priest was a close, personal friend of mine.” O’Brien stepped closer.

  “I didn’t shoot no priest! Tell him Mr. Russo! Fucker’s crazy…gonna kill me!”

  “Shut up!” snapped Russo

  The sounds of sirens could be heard close to the hospital. O’Brien stepped to the window and looked out. More than a dozen squad cars were half circling the main entrance. He turned to Russo. “Here’s the plan. Russo, you’re going to call Detective Ron Hamilton. You’re going to tell him that you and Sergio are dropping all charges against me. The second thing: you’re going to pay for Barbie Beckman’s medical expenses. After she’s healed, you’re going to subsidize her college education.”

  “And if I don’t.”

  “I walked into your club, and I got to you. I got to you in your hospital room. I’ll get to you wherever you are. Now the last item. Where’s Carlos Salazar?”

  “He calls us from time to time. He checks in when he wants to. I don’t have his number. Sometimes he drops by the club.”

  O’Brien pointed the gun at the man in the corner. “Where’s Salazar?”

  “Spends a lot of time at the Sixth Street Gym. Likes to shoot pool at a joint called Sticks in Little Havana, and likes to buy pussy at the high-end clubs. Take your pick.”

  O’Brien placed both pistols under his belt, hiding them beneath his shirt. Opening the door to leave, he turned back to Russo. “Your time’s up. Call Hamilton.”

  When the door closed behind O’Brien, Russo said to his bodyguard, “Get Salazar on the fuckin’ phone. Now!”

  SIXTY-FOUR

  O’Brien walked down the hospital corridor, following the signs to an operating room. He ducked in a stock room, changed his clothes, dressing as a medical orderly. He dropped his clothes, and both pistols, into a white plastic trash bag, stuffed linens into the bag, tied it, and walked down the hall to a service elevator. He rode the service elevator to the first floor.

  Sitting alone in a wheelchair near the patient discharge area was an elderly woman with a suitcase by her side. O’Brien approached her, smiled, and said, “Ma’am, are you ready to be taken to where someone can pick you up?”

  She smiled. “Yes I am. My husband went to get the car.”

  “Hospital policy is we take you to the curb, the patient pick up areas, and see that you get in your transportation safely.”

  She smiled and nodded. O’Brien picked up her suitcase, tied the plastic bag to one of the wheelchair handles, and began pushing her through the corridor toward the patient pick-up section of the building. Three police officers rushed by him, hands on their holstered pistols as they ran. O’Brien could see more officers at the front entrance.

  “What’s all the excitement?” the woman asked O’Brien.

  “I can’t say for sure.”

  “Maybe they have a crazy person doing something, you think?”

  “Maybe.”

  O’Brien pushed the wheelchair toward the double glass doors that opened automatically. Other patients, all in wheelchairs, holding flowers and overnight bags, waited to be driven away.

  The woman pointed toward a Buick. “There’s Harold. He’s pulling up.”

  Harold, a slender man in his seventies, thin white moustache, neatly parted white hair, moved spryly getting out of the car. He smiled, popped the truck, and waited for his wife to be wheeled to the car. Harold said, “Let’s get Carolyn into the front seat.”

  “No problem, sir,” said O’Brien.

  They stood on either side of the wheelchair and carefully lifted Carolyn up to her feet. She walked three steps with O’Brien and her husband on each side. She eased into the front seat and said, “Take me home, I’m ready to see my roses.”

  O’Brien shut the car door. “Sir, let me get your wife’s suitcase in the trunk.”

  “I appreciate your help,” said Harold.

  O’Brien started to close the trunk and said, “I just got off work, my friend’s car is over in lot L. He works here, in E.R. We carpool, but the lead asked him to pull a double. I’ll catch a cab home, but may I impose on you for a lift to the car? I left some of my things in it. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s been a long day in the operating room.”

  “No imposition at all,” Harold said, smiling.

  “Great, I’ll just toss my bag in and we’ll be on our way.” O’Brien put the bag in the backseat, and pushed the wheelchair to the sidewalk beneath the alcove.

  Two police officers were walking under the porte-cochere coming toward O’Brien. He turned his back to them, knelt beside a young girl in a wheelchair holding a teddy bear, and said, “Take care of that bear, okay?”

  She smiled and looked up at her mother who said, “They’re both feeling better.”

  O’Brien smiled and climbed into the backseat of the Buick. “Thank you.”

  “Glad to help, “Harold said. “Now where’s lot L?”

  “On the other side of the hospital. You can go out of here, take a left and follow the drive around to the back.”

  As Harold got closer to lot L, O’Brien scanned the parking lot looking for people sitting in unmarked cars—people talking into police radios.

  “It’s the Jeep by the tree,” said O’Brien. “I won’t be but a few seconds.”

  “Take your time,” said Carolyn.

  O’Brien unlocked the Jeep and leaned across the seat to get his laptop and tape recorder. He looked through the rear windshield and saw it.

  A wink. A small reflection of light. The sun coming off a hand-held lens. It was from the roof of a doctor’s office building next to the hospital. O’Brien didn’t know if the reflection came from a riflescope or binoculars.

  He got the laptop and recorder, tossed the keys on the floorboard, and maneuvered around to keep the Jeep between himself and the reflection on the roof.

  O’Brien darted as he returned to the car. He said, “You can get into traffic by going through that alley, it opens onto Tenth Avenue.”

  “You sure know your roads around the hospital,” said Harold.

  “You learn it.”

  The old man pulled out of the lot and started down the alley.

  #

  THE POLICE SNIPER keyed his radio. “Subject just got out and back into a dark blue Buick. Heading toward Tenth and Newman.”

  “All available units move!” barked a command from the radio.

  #

  WHEN HAROLD PULLED out onto the corner of Tenth, O’Brien said, “This is fine. I’ll get out at the light. You both have been so kind. I can get transportation from here.”

  “Sure we can’t take you any farther?” asked Carolyn.

  “No, ma’am. This is good. You go home and take care of those roses.”

  “Be careful,” said Harold as O’Brien got out of the car. O’Brien jogged across the street where a city bus was about to pull away. He banged on the door. The driver slowed, opened the door, and O’Brien got in. He paid and walked past a dozen staring faces. He took a seat in the back of the bus next to an elderly Hispanic woman holding a paper bag filled with plantains.

  As the bus pulled away and headed n
orth down Seventh Avenue, O’Brien glanced out the back windshield. A pack of squad cards was going the opposite direction. Sirens screaming—cops ready to catch one of their own who they were convinced had crossed the line.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Two miles from the hospital, O’Brien got off the bus, walked into a convenience store restroom and changed back into his clothes. He tossed the hospital clothing into a garbage can on the outside of the building and flagged a passing cab.

  “Where you need to go, sir?” asked the driver, his accent heavy Cuban.

  “One-thirty-eight Hibiscus Court, Coconut Grove.”

  “Twenty minutes, no problem.”

  The driver pulled into the afternoon traffic as O’Brien looked at his watch.

  Thirty-four hours remaining.

  He picked up his cell and called Lauren Miles. “Did you come up with anything on Judy Neilsen or Carlos Salazar?” he asked.

  “Just about to call you. Neilson first. After Alexandria Cole’s murder and Charlie William’s trial, Judy Neilson left Miami and moved to New York City. She worked as a model, but the bright lights and big city seemed to fade. She moved back to Florida, married and divorced. Now sells real estate near Orlando. Salazar is bad news.”

  “How bad?”

  “Extortion, racketeering, five cases of aggravated battery. And try this one on for starters…we believe Salazar was recruited by the Aryan Brotherhood.”

  “He seems to have a little different ethnicity than what they look for.”